


Brotherhood

by beekeepercain



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Blind Character, Blind Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, M/M, Past Underage, Post-Canon, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sharing a Bed, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-28
Updated: 2015-08-28
Packaged: 2018-04-17 05:39:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 14
Words: 84,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4654419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beekeepercain/pseuds/beekeepercain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a hunting injury leaves Sam temporarily blinded, Dean has to step back into his old role as his brother's keeper, helping Sam adjust to his new life while they both wait for recovery to take place. Old roles don't come without their shadows, leaving both Sam and Dean to deal with long-repressed, now resurfacing memories and the grey fields of healthy and unhealthy dependence, limits of familial affection and, ultimately, the questions of desire and longing. There is no doubt that their lifestyle is far from convenient, rejecting the very concept of normalcy, but ever since a painful event buried in their past they've sworn to play by the rules of brotherhood set for people who grew up in a world different from theirs. How could it ever apply to their relationship, when nothing about them fits the mold?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not kidding with the sibling incest tag. Please mind this when venturing into the fic - it will be heavily explored in the text as a theme, it's not tagged just to remind people that Sam and Dean are, in fact, brothers. (Wait, _really?_ )
> 
> The same goes for the underage tag. Despite not being graphic, there are mentions of sexual acts by children under the age of ten. More graphic depictions for ages 15 and up.
> 
> This fic is a part of the Wincest big bang of 2015. Art by the wonderful [**amberdreams**](http://amberdreams.livejournal.com/)! Art masterpost link [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4659585), please check it out!
> 
> As a final word, I live and breathe comments, so if anything you read hits a spot... let me know n_n

* * *

 

** **

 

**Prologue**

 

Sam let out a hoarse, breathless laugh that transformed into something of a moan. His knee went out from underneath him but the knife was stuck deep in the wraith's flesh; didn't help him much, the wraith's spike was just as deep inside his side and only ever going in deeper. The thing didn't even look human anymore, it had dropped the disguise and just stared at him from past the rotten flesh, and he stared right back at it feeling his body throb through the numbness that would soon enough send unimaginable agony charging right through him, but for the time being, there was a dead stillness between the two of them, and Sam was grinning.

"Got you."

The wraith's spike retracted. It spun around with an ungodly screech, a scream, and retreated, limping, into the woods. All Sam could hear as it moved further was the sound of his own heart, suspiciously slow but each beat like a war drum echoing in his ears - his breath wheezed and his horizon was closing in, flickering in and out of sight like a broken light. With the pain came a wave of nausea, and as darkness consumed his vision, he could hear Dean calling his name from somewhere far behind him: the ground met with his body in slow-motion, the impact sending his own weight upon him like a boulder falling from above. He could feel Dean's hands on him, on his bleeding side and his face - now also bloody - and in his hair and gripping him from his chest, and then nothing.

Sweet, sweet nothing.  
It hurt a whole lot less than everything did.

The next time he breathed, he breathed the smoky air of the cabin. He could have been on fire; his skin was cracking, his nostrils were raw and his lips were skinless. He'd been dragged through coals and every inch of him was an open sore: something touched him and he yelped, a tear falling over his cheek as he drew in breath and his throat felt as if it was inside out.

"It's gonna be okay, Sammy."

Somehow, it didn't feel like it was.

 

 

The hour turned late; Sam could hear it in Dean's voice and perhaps, with good imagination, even feel it in his own suffering. His breath was still wheezing but the searing pain seemed to be settling to an ache - his vision hadn't returned, but at least he could hear more than just the occasional word like a spear cracking through a thick layer of ice to where his drowning corpse was still trapped. The couch no longer felt like it was a bed of shattered glass and if he'd doubted his survival before, now a hope lingered that he might yet make it through.

Dean had spoken non-stop the whole evening. He'd done so while he'd tended to Sam's injury and around the midpoint through his efforts Sam had realised the older wasn't speaking to _him_ , but rather to a hunter on the phone; he was asking everyone they knew of what it was he was dealing with, what was killing his brother, and how he could prevent it. Over and over and over again, to no avail, but now he'd stopped. Sam had heard him pray under his breath, but Castiel had been missing in action for quite a while now - nothing new on that front - and it was unlikely that he'd make a surprise appearance now. To make matters worse, he wasn't going to be any help even if he would turn up. Not with what little power he had left to him. And Sam didn't blame him, although if it had been up to him, he would have wished to have Castiel by his side as he lay there dying.

But if he _wasn't_ dying, well... that changed things.

"Sammy, you hear me?"

The younger mouthed a word but only a whistling breath came out. He could have sighed if his body was responding to his commands without grand effort; instead he saved himself the trouble and tried again.  
"Yeah," he managed to croak, "Yeah, I hear you."

Dean drew in a sharp breath, then let it back out in a sigh of relief.  
"Thank God. Okay, so - I've made a couple calls -"

Sam's brows knitted together and the corner of his mouth twitched. The count had to be up in double digits by then.

"- and the good news is, you're not going to die."

Well, the good news were good.

"The _bad_ news is," and of course there were bad news, "the wraith's got poison, which I guess you already knew, and it's gonna take a while 'til it's out of your system."

The bad news sounded worse than the good news had sounded good. Sam was almost certain his eyes were open, but he sure as hell didn't see the glow he knew should have illuminated the room. In fact, he saw nothing at all.  
"How long?" he heard himself ask, as if something else had commanded his mouth, something that did the work for him while his mind was busy at work elsewhere.  
His tongue barely fit in his mouth, and he couldn't decide where to return it once it wasn't in use anymore. It rubbed wrong against his teeth everywhere. Turning his head didn't help. His eyes felt dry and he closed them again.

"Well, the information varies, they couldn't give me more than a timeline. Anything from four days to two weeks."

" _God._ "

"It's not that bad," Dean's voice continued, although it seemed to be coming from a different direction now; his weight hadn't shifted from where Sam felt it by his side, but he'd turned his head, perhaps.  
"The worst is going to be over by tomorrow."

"The worst?"

"Let me rephrase."  
The fire crackled; Sam felt a wave of warmth rush over him as the flames rose and died down again in the fireplace very close by.  
"Painkillers are going to start working by tomorrow."

"There's no antidote?"

"None that I can find. I'm sorry, Sammy."

Sam shook his head.  
"No, it's - I just want to sleep."

He could hear Dean nodding.  
"Then sleep. I'm gonna be around if you need anything."

Sam nodded in turn. He couldn't get out a thank you - he tried, but instead just another dry breath like a dying man's last cough managed to crawl out of his mouth. He felt the older's fingers run over the back of his palm but that was it; after the sensation had lifted, his world tilted and he fell down some unspeakable depth, mind rushing to places he wouldn't be able to recall when he woke up. Perhaps it was a blessing: fever dreams had never treated him well.

 


	2. Brotherhood

 

It was late spring. Wild flowers bloomed around the cabin and the green was still bright and light. Dew no longer froze over in the coldest hour, but Dean's breath rose up towards the pale sky of transforming colours as a cloud of thin mist. His eyes took in the shreds of clouds reflecting the sun that he couldn't yet see but which had already painted the skyline golden and the world around him a shade of blue and dark green, and the shapes of the mountains covered by what now appeared a blanket of black where the forests spread over their sides. He was shivering in his t-shirt and with the legs of his jeans rolled up to his knees, but Sam's body temperature was dropping and the only thing he could do was to keep the fire burning no matter what.  
The cold coke in his hands was a long shot from the bottle of whiskey he would have preferred, but he had no whiskey beyond what he was pouring into the blackening wound in his brother's side and he wasn't wasting that on himself. To make matters worse, he needed a steady hand and even the beer was thus out of question - his nerves made him a mess despite his faith in the information he'd been given. A wraith doesn't kill by the poison; it feeds on brains of living things. The only thing the poison does is incapacitate. Painful, not deadly. Painful, _not_ deadly.  
Yet when it was about Sam, Dean could never trust, not really. That man was everything to him; too much, if an outsider was concerned. But for the two of them, they had nothing else. That was the alpha and the omega of everything, the core of them, the only thing that mattered in the end, and Sam was his brother, his family and his soulmate - he would not lose him to fever nor hypothermia nor a damn wraith's poison of all godforsaken things.

The drink in the bottle the man held now tasted diluted, aged. He'd had it with him through cleaning the puncture wound in Sam's side for the fifth time and he'd been lost in that work for long enough, but after some time in the freezer at least it was enough to drop the heat that had nested in Dean's guts and which seemed to be completely immune to the biting cold of the morning hour. The hunter downed the rest of it and left the empty bottle sitting on the steps; he'd collect it later, dump it somewhere with the rest of them, think about it when he had the brains for mundane things. With his jaw clenched he turned to return indoors, already terrified of what he would find even though he'd been gone for no longer than five minutes at most: his restless mind wouldn't let him stay from Sam's side for longer than that, but he needed oxygen, and the cold air was the only thing that kept him awake anymore.

Sam showed some signs of discomfort when he pushed the thermometer back into his armpit, but he wasn't waking up, and perhaps it was better that way - Dean could have given anything to have him open his eyes again, but consciously he realised that the more rest the man got the better he would fare in fighting the poison in his veins. The older sighed in relief when he saw that the other's temperature was steadily rising still from the concerning low it had dropped to earlier. For a moment he knelt there doing nothing, brain empty of thought, before making a decision and turning for the bedroom. He dragged the mattress, the pillow and the blanket out of his bed and made a new one on the floor in front of the couch: he'd sleep there what little he could and set up frequent alarms to check on Sam and on his injury. The time was closer to five in the morning when he first closed his eyes, anxiety gripping his chest and causing him to wake up only ten minutes later, an equal amount of time left to the first alarm. He moved it by ten minutes, made sure his brother was still breathing, peered underneath the loose bandages around his waist and let out a sigh of relief at seeing it slightly more red and slightly less a deadly shade of dark grey than before. He'd never seen a wound turn black and have it end well, but this time it wasn't an infection that caused the discolouration. This time had to be different.

It had to be.

 

 

Sam woke up slowly; the cabin smelled of bacon and he could hear the grease stirring on the pan. His eyes felt like glued together and his skin was still burning, but overall he felt better than he'd done the last time he remembered being conscious, and he reached his hand towards the sound of what he imagined had to be Dean moving around nearby. His fingers wound up around cloth and he heard a sharp gasp, feeling the older jump against his touch.

"Jesus Christ, Sam!"

A weak smile crossed Sam's lips. He let go of Dean and brought his hand back over the blanket wrapped around him - it felt too tight around his body, constricting, but he didn't think of complaining.  
"Morning," he stated instead.

"Morning. I'm getting us out of here."

"What?"

"You heard me. I'm taking you back to the bunker as soon as you can walk fifteen feet to the car. I'm not going out there on a wraith hunt and risk leaving you alone defenseless. I called someone up, they're taking over for us - I'm leaving everything we know to them, the maps and the newspapers and the notes."

Sam frowned. He reached his hand over his face and felt about his eyes; there was definitely crust over his eyes and feeling it made him nauseous, so he brought his hand back down quite a bit faster than he'd intended. The joints still ached.  
"Who's coming?"

"Couple guys."

"That's reassuring."

"I don't think it'll make you feel much better if I say Garth recommended them, but they've hunted wraith before, so it's not like I'm gonna complain about it."

There was a silence through which Sam listened to Dean clearly pack up: he was folding clothes, piling papers and moving weapons to the table between the couch and the kitchen space behind Sam's back.

"I think your bacon's burning," the younger finally spoke again.

"Shit."

Another faint smile lingered over Sam's lips before a sigh wiped it away.  
"Could you get me some water? My eyes feel awful."

"Your eyes _look_ awful. But sure, give me a second here. I need to salvage our breakfast. Want some? I made it for two."

Sam nodded, only realising a while after that there was no chance for Dean to have caught that.  
"Yeah. Sure."

The older's steps crossed the cabin and stopped by his side: he felt Dean kneeling next to him on the floor, but he hadn't been walking on the floor.  
"Did you sleep on the floor?"

Dean pressed a wet rag to Sam's hand, then secured a container of some kind under his arm. The container splashed with more water and Sam felt about it with his fingers to find the water's surface. The water was warmer than he'd expected - almost hot, implying that Dean had been boiling it before he'd even thought of asking.

"I did. Don't worry, it wasn't much worse than the crappy beds. How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine."  
The water over his swollen eyes felt like heaven to Sam as he pressed the cloth over his face.

"The wraith touched you, right?"

"Yeah. It freaking stabbed me, if you didn't notice that."

"I'm just worried."

"Worried about what?"

The darkness was uncomfortable, more so than the pain and the discharge around Sam's nostrils, lips and eyes. It made him vulnerable, weakened, unable to defend himself - unable to do much of anything, in fact. Even if he'd felt up to the task, he couldn't have risked standing up without fearing he'd trip on something, and there was no way he would have found his way safely across the couch either. He hoped that once he could open his eyes, it would be gone, but something told him it wasn't that simple, and the premonition made him shiver with anxiety.

"Well, you know what wraiths do, right?" Dean's voice continued the conversation from the kitchen; he seemed to be preparing the breakfast now, at least Sam could hear utensils against the thin, worn plates they'd eaten from for almost a week now every day.  
"They make people crazy. So - uh - you feeling crazy?"

Sam considered it.  
"No," he finally said, "I feel... alright, actually."  
And it was true; he felt sane, and even his physical state now felt more like a bad cold than a fatal poisoning. It had been a night since he'd gained the injury, but he knew that didn't mean much; they'd faced off with a wraith before, and there was no telling yet whether he'd survived the encounter without catching the crazy on the way out, too.  
"I'll let you know if that changes."

"Please. I'll bring your breakfast in now, if you're about settled with soaking your face."

The younger soaked the cloth in the container of water again and pressed it back over his eyes as Dean crossed the room; soon enough the container was traded away for a plate and a fork.  
"Looking good there, little brother."

"Somehow I doubt that, Dean."

Sam heard Dean shrug; it was in the sound of his clothes, the fabric stretching in a certain given manner that he somehow subconsciously had come to associate with the gesture.

"Just trust me on this," the older said with a grimace in his tone, and Sam didn't contest it further.

His throat still hurt when he swallowed.

 

 

Dean helped Sam in the car before the other car arrived: by the time he was handing out the keys, Sam had fallen asleep. His head lolled against the window for the better half of the journey home, and he only woke up for a while when Dean replaced the rag over his eyes for a fresh one about two hours later. Then he slept again; he didn't care to stop for a meal, so Dean drove on for longer than he usually would have without his dose of extra caffeine. When he finally did have a burger, he lacked appetite in the same way as Sam seemed to lack his, and the meal had gone cold by the time he finished it.

The road didn't last forever, but in Dean's head, it sure could have. He couldn't recall when he'd last wanted to be home so bad, but with every wince the younger gave to a bump in the road he longed a little more desperately for the trip to be over and the bunker's garage to swallow them and the car within. In due time, the car did roll down the ramp into the belly of their home, but it still seemed overdue and somehow less like a victory and more like shelter in a storm.  
Unpacking could wait. Sam needed a shoulder to make his way up to his bedroom and an additional pair of hands to clean up his wound, so the first thing on Dean's list of priorities was to boil up some water for the task. The kitchen welcomed him with a flickering light; he cast a betrayed look at the culprit and the hair on the back of his neck stood to the sight even though its cause was nothing paranormal and he knew it well enough, even by the gut feeling alone, the same one that like an instinct could tell apart a case from a weird coincidence.  
He added salt to the water, poured it down into a container and carried it back to Sam's room, arms and palms burning against the heating plastic. Out of old habit, he knocked before entering.

Sam turned his head towards him, posture slouched but a hint of a smile on him.  
"I feel useless," the younger greeted him.

"Eh," Dean replied, gladly parting with the water he'd carried as he replaced a couple open books with it on the bedside table, "just do your part and keep breathing, it'll be fine. I'll grab the first aid kit, give me a second."

The younger nodded.  
"Thanks, Dean."

_'Thanks, Dean'_ seemed to be something Dean was going to get used to before the end of the week. He didn't know what to reply to it so he just flashed a pointless half-smile towards Sam, turned around on his heels feeling stupid for wasting that gesture on a blind man not because of the trouble but because the knowledge that Sam couldn't see him smile hurt him in a strange way much deeper than he would have cared for, and walked out of the room again. The first aid kit sat on the shelf in his room and he reached for it at the same time as his phone started ringing in his pocket. With a small grunt his fingers wrapped around the kit and his other hand charged to grab the phone.  
"Hey, Cas. You're alive."

"Yes, I'm alive," the voice greeted him, and Dean's eyes closed with relief as he landed heavy on his bed, smiling and for the first time now breathing freely.  
"I heard your prayer. How is Sam?"

"Better, I guess. Walking and talking, for one. It's his eyes I'm most worried about."

"Did the lore tell you anything? What to expect?"

Dean hesitated.  
"Not much," he said then, "I heard more from some hunters who've hunted this wraith before. They gave me an overview. It should be temporary for most, but this is my brother, and -"

"- and you worry. Of course."

The hunter nodded, feeling as if his swallow got caught somewhere in the middle of his throat. It burned. He heard Castiel sigh on the other end of the line, knowing already what he was about to say next.  
"I can't get to you yet," the truth came, "I wish I could, but I have -"

"- duties, I know," Dean finished up for him in turn, sighing, but not with disappointment, merely exhaustion.  
"I miss you, man. It's like you're never here."

"I know. I miss you both too, and I wish I could help Sam. Please, let me know if it turns for worse and I'll do what I can to come sooner, Dean."

"Yeah, no, man, it's okay. We'll manage. It's probably gonna be just a week, and he's already over the worst - I doubt he needs any celestial first aid anymore, the usual should do just fine. I mean, he's turned your help down before."

"He can be stubborn."

"He's an ass," Dean huffed, smiling, "but I'll do what I can and I'll keep you updated if anything changes. If not, I'll see you when you can find the time."

"Dean -"

"I'm not being sarcastic. I get it, I do, your work there is important. I'm glad that someone's doing it, and this is my brother, I can take care of him. That's what I've always done. I'm just happy that I could talk to you now, really, Cas. It's been a while."

Dean heard a hesitant smile in the sigh that Castiel let through, and for a moment there was a silence: cars passed by on the other end of the line and Dean wondered in passing where the older was now, but he didn't find the words to ask.

"I will try to call you later," the angel finally said, and Dean closed his eyes again, this time to try and fight the inevitable that was coming next.  
"I have to go now. I'm sorry, Dean."

"No, that's -"  
It wasn't.  
"- that's alright. Talk to you later, man."

"Have a good day, Dean."

"You too, Cas."

The sound of the call ending was one of Dean's least favourites. This had been going on for a long time now, and that Sam's condition made no difference to it came as no surprise to Dean. A part of him was used to it - a part of him was sated just knowing he had a friend out there somewhere, and that things weren't nearly as bad for them as they could have been, but a much bigger part was riddled with longing and selfish concerns. He didn't have too many friends, and sometimes it felt like he was losing the one with whom he was the closest with, but angels were drawn by duty and Castiel was before anything else an angel still - even after being _human_ in all the ways that an angel could and still as his powers were nothing like the strength he'd once had, he _was_ an angel, and sometimes Dean felt as if it was something he'd accepted. At other times, he just felt lonely, discarded, insignificant and needy; he'd felt that way for what seemed his whole lifetime, but Castiel's presence made it better. It was different from Sam's company, like a breath of fresh air, and he'd grown too used to it during the brief time when things hadn't been so hectic - used to having another relationship on top of the one that sometimes felt that it consumed him, when Dean couldn't tell where he ended and Sam began, as if they were more than figuratively joined at the hip and every room was too small to contain them both at once.

He found himself smiling, both palms dragging down his face. What he loved the most was just to have them both, Sam on one hand and Castiel at the other, and being completely quiet for a moment to just watch them laugh with one another, listen to their conversation without poking in. Those moments he felt as if he needed nothing more, that his life was full and that all that struggling, all the fighting had amounted to something worthwhile. He loved them, and he would have said so if he'd just had the words.

The corridor felt shorter than before. Two knocks and he entered without waiting for permission, already picking out necessities for cleaning the wound on Sam's side. The younger's brows were raised, sticking up from underneath the wet rag over his sore eyes. He'd taken up more space since Dean had left, long legs spread over the floorspace and a hand resting by his side on the bed exactly where Dean was now making his space by picking it up and planting it back on Sam's lap.

"Cas called," Dean announced, "he's doing good, but keeping busy as usual."

"Man, how long it's _been_ since we last saw him? Two months?"

The older shrugged, tugging the other's shirt underneath his arm and starting to undo the bandages from over his wound. Sam gave him the space, for the time being content with his part or at least submissive to Dean's intentions of taking care of him; perhaps he realised that doing this without seeing what he was poking at was an unnecessary risk they didn't need to take, or maybe he just hadn't questioned it yet. Either way, Dean was thankful for it - the longer it took for the younger's independence to raise its head again, the better for his recovery.

"Too long," he finally replied dully as he wet a clean cloth in the still warm salt water, "but I guess you've gotta wait for the good things. Especially with Cas."

"Yeah," Sam huffed, "especially with Cas. He's working himself to death."

"He's an angel, he _thrives_ on working himself to death. I'm just not sure if he realises that we'll both be dead of old age by the time he gets to see us next if he keeps up with the routine."

Dean felt proud of himself at the chuckle he got out of Sam; the taller leaned away from him, shifted his arm and carefully rid himself of the cloth over his eyes. The discharge had cleared, but his lids were still red and infected-looking and Dean didn't wonder why he wasn't opening them. Perhaps he still couldn't.

"I think I need a new rag," Sam said in a bothered tone, as if afraid he was making himself too much of a burden by requesting it.

"I think you're right."

Dean reached for the trash can, threw the used, blood-stained cloth from his own hands in there and brought it up to Sam's knees, pressing the edge lightly over them to signal him where it was. The younger trashed what had become his blindfold and patted around to find the first aid kit; Dean opened a clean cloth wipe for him and set it in his palm.  
"How do you feel?" he asked, for once letting his concern show on his features as Sam couldn't pick up on it nor could he feel threatened by its presence.

"I'm good."

"Eyes hurting?"

"They're a bit sore, yeah."  
With even more care than with which he'd removed the old rag, Sam wiped off the moisture from around his eyes and then, as if defeated, he sighed and bent forwards, pressing his elbows into his knees. Dean laid his palm over the man's shoulder for a moment, lacking the words to encourage him with.

"It'll pass," he tried anyway.

"Yeah. I know. Where's the water?"

"Here."

With a nod, Sam dipped the new cloth into the water and pressed it back over his eyes. His mouth was tense as if holding back a grimace, but Dean couldn't tell if it was from the pain or the frustration alone.

"The wound looks good," he commented in a lost voice, trying his best to fish out some positive in the situation.

A hint of a smile crossed Sam's lips as he nodded.  
"Yeah. Thanks for that."

"No problem."

 

 

Sam knew Dean was trapped there. He knew a part of the man wanted to go, do something on his own for a bit - relax, eat, make a phone call, shoot at the range, anything to take his mind off of the younger's injuries - but another held him glued to Sam's side as long as he so much as looked ill or like he could possibly need something. It took some convincing to shake the older off of him, but it was for the best; he set up an audio book to play in Sam's bedroom before leaving by the younger's request, and closed the door behind him promising to knock before entering again. Sam missed him the moment he was gone - truth was, he didn't want to be left alone, not like this. Not in the vastness of the bunker and the solitude of the dark that surrounded him, but he didn't want to be the chain _and_ the ball holding Dean imprisoned, so he'd send him away as much as he could knowing that he still needed assistance and would inevitably bind him back in due time. Meanwhile, in the silence provided by the narrator guiding him through the first chapter of a murder mystery, free of charge, he stood up on his aching legs only to find out that he could - to prove himself that even though his vision was as good as gone, the rest of him was beginning to function as expected. He made a few gentle stretches with his calves pressed into the bed behind him in case he'd lose balance, and the feeling of blood rushing through his body, though even that hurt him, brought a smile back on his lips. He ran his fingertips over the now uncovered upper half of his face, confident that the salt had washed him clean enough so that he wouldn't add an infection to the irritation, but the pain was subduing and if he wasn't completely wrong, the swelling was down as well. Perhaps he'd be able to open his eyes by the evening, although based on what he remembered from the fever-drained hours from earlier, it didn't make a difference to how utterly and completely blind he was; the darkness underneath his lids wasn't a result of his eyes being closed. He could feel the heat of the reading lamp against his palm when he sought it out, but no matter how close he brought his face, he saw black without a glow of red to announce the presence of light so close to his eyes.

He hadn't asked; a part of him was afraid to hear it, but another simply knew he didn't need to. Dean hadn't appeared in the slightest surprised by him losing sight, so it had to be a symptom of the poisoning - as it was, it would likely be temporary, and that was the hope that Sam was clinging to. He couldn't be certain if Dean would have told him right off the bat that it _wasn't_ , but surely lore like that would have made it into the books, and he'd never read much about a wraith's poison in his lifetime. He'd known it existed, but it was barely covered in any of the texts he was familiar with, as the most time and effort was dedicated to the fact that once the poison was in the victim's system, they usually got their brains sucked out before the effects were showing, and if not, they were never heard from again regardless of the time it took for the wraith to catch up with them again. And in a modern setting, a wraith didn't _need_ its poison - there were havens for them, asylums and prisons and other institutions where raging madness didn't seem out of place, places where a predator could get to its prey without any chase taking place. It was rare to bump into one as they had now, one that still lived out in the open, preying on outcasts and hermits and other weak members of society whom not many would miss but who still could use their legs to run should the need arise.  
A bitterness lingered within Sam at the knowledge that they'd let an easy hunt slip because of him, but even looking back, he'd done his best with what he'd had to himself. He'd wounded the creature, likely in a manner that would prove fatal to it - even though he didn't know the hunters sent to the mission to replace him and Dean, he didn't doubt their success.

With a small grunt escaping him at the burn in his muscles he bent over, ran his fingers down his knees to his ankles and breathed in deep before taking the final stretch to touch his toes; he stayed in that position for a moment before slowly pulling back up again and giving his stiff neck a final stretch on both sides to top the move. Then he fell back on the bed, felt about the table to find the water and as he lay back down on the bed he brought the cloth over his eyes again, feeling the droplets run down his face and seep into the pillow underneath.

"Chapter 2," the voice announced, and Sam breathed in deep to prepare himself for it.

 

 

Dean wandered aimlessly through the bunker for the first half an hour, unable to relax but unwilling to head right back into the bedroom to admit his failure. He picked up books, then pushed them back in the shelves; he ransacked the Men of Letters' archive on wraiths and planted his face into one of the books as if to try and suck in the information from the pages. There was nothing new to it, nothing he wasn't already familiar with, and only one description of the potential effects of the poisoning, all pointing towards the conclusion that while the effects lingered for days, full recovery was almost guaranteed. It should have helped to ease the man's mind, but he couldn't rest any better with that text processed, and once he was done rubbing his face into the withered paper he closed the books, shoved the pages back between their respective folders and the clippings and sticky notes where he'd taken them from, and returned everything to the shelf. There was no antidote, and no amount of staring at or indeed rubbing himself all over the text was going to change that. Only time would do the trick, and time they had; to pass some, Dean pulled open his phone's email and read through a newsletter from a comedy website.

He put another fifteen minutes into funny videos, failing to entertain himself; his constant glancing at the time in the upper corner of the screen didn't help him improve the situation. At last he decided that since it was going nowhere, and he clearly had no control over himself, he could as well put the energy he was wasting into something more practical and cook dinner for them. Because of the meal uneagerly enjoyed on the road neither of them could be hungry yet, so Dean made sure to pick the most complex available recipe for the beef they'd hoarded in their freezer for much too long by then, and with that sitting on the counter, he finally gave in and headed back towards his brother's bedroom.

Sam invited him in with a sound rather than a word; he seemed comfortably settled on the bed and Dean rolled over next to him, and for the time being they both just listened to the almost monotonous but oddly enchanting voice that kept them company via the tablet he'd set far enough from the water to ensure it wouldn't end up as collateral damage even in the likely case that Sam would end up knocking the container over.  
At the end of chapter three, Dean reached over to it and paused it.  
"How's the book?"

"Surprisingly good, actually. I like the depth it puts into the characters."

"Not much of a plot yet."

"No, but it's pretty long, isn't it."

"Yup. I was thinking of cooking the beef."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

A silence. Dean watched the younger's features, the wet hair that ran over his wet ears and the rag that rested over his face.  
"Can I take a look at your eyes?" he asked then, and Sam nodded.

"Not much to see."

"I just want to check if they're still..."  
The rag felt heavy and more water rolled down Sam's face. He grimaced and wiped it off his cheekbones, but ignored the droplets soaking the pillow underneath him - after all, there wasn't much he could have done about them, but Dean couldn't help but wonder if he'd already turned the thing around at least once to escape the wetness.  
The redness hadn't gone anywhere; there was a bruise-like blue-purple tint around the very edges of the younger's eyes that made him look much sicker than he seemed to be. Yet at least the discharge seemed to be gone completely, and none of the reddish marks could be seen on the white cloth either, so that much was good.

"How long will this last?" Sam asked him, for the first time inquiring about what he was going through - Dean realised he hadn't told him, perhaps out of stress alone.

"I don't know," he answered honestly, "I can't find anything detailed anywhere. But like I said, it should be gone in two weeks at most, all of it, and I bet you'll be up before then for sure."

"I can't see a thing."

"Well, that isn't such a big surprise when you have your eyes closed, Sammy."

"You know what I mean."

Dean clenched his jaw and looked away.  
"Yeah," he then said, "Yeah. I don't know how long that'll last. We'll just have to hope it goes away in a few days."

"And until then?"

"I guess I'll be your personal assistant."

"Just get me a guide dog."

Dean scoffed.  
"Dream on, little brother. And if I ever find out you got stabbed by a wraith _on purpose_ just to get a dog, I swear -"

Sam laughed.  
"I think poking my eyes out or, hell, asking Cas to reveal his true form to me would be a more effective way to become permanently blind. I'm not sure if I can get a guide dog in two weeks - and if that didn't convince you, I'd rather be able to _see_ my dog. You know what?"

"Yeah?"

"One of these days you'll wake up to a puppy barking and there's _nothing_ you can do about it."

"Shut up, Sam. I'll take it back to the pound."

"As if, Dean."

The older grunted, but Sam was right; in the unlikely scenario that the man would suddenly decide to get domestic and bring in a dog, he'd do nothing but whine about it, the same he did for most decisions that Sam made. And the other knew it, but even though the jokes were something of a routine, he didn't seem to be chasing that dream. Dean was the same; he often poked fun at something that he longed for only to never pursue it, either because it seemed impossible or because going after it, in full honesty, scared him - a proper, long-term relationship was one of those things. Lately there had been a lot of talk of _when_ , as an assumption that one day it would happen - "when I find a girl", as if it was a dream within the realm of possibilities - but Dean knew that even though he had the freedom and the chance to walk out the door, meet up with the lady of his life at some random bakery over a cup of coffee or by walking into her and scattering her groceries all over the street or, as was infinitely more likely, in a sad dive somewhere, he didn't seem to be about to do anything to achieve that dream. Yet it still seemed closer now, and hell if it wouldn't have been high time, but at the same time, Sam only talked about dogs as if he was no longer interested in pursuing a life with more stability in it than what a pet could provide, or like he'd long since given up on hoping it was even worth dreaming about.

Out of the two of them, Dean would have rather had Sam marry off and tell him it was over, the whole hunting career; he had a place here, somewhere to settle down, and they weren't getting any younger. One of these days a bullet, a fang or a sharp edge would get to them, and it would be all over.

"Maybe you should do it," the older suddenly heard himself say, voice torn between joking and serious and horrified, "Get a dog. Get a big dog, teach it to sniff out mushrooms, start a freaking garden, buy a house."

"Yeah, right."

"Remember when you used to think that was gonna happen?"

Sam was quiet for a moment, but there was a crooked grimace on his lips to show that he was still in the conversation. Dean ached, he just didn't know why.  
"I used to be pretty naive," the other finally said, "Put the story back on, I want to know who Joe was tailing."

 

 

There was familiarity in the situation. Sam had been there before, maybe too many times, lying sick in a bed while Dean did his best to keep him breathing, lower his fever or help him with a broken bone. It was rarely the other way around, but usually he resisted, tried to manage on his own: now he had no choice. There were few things he could do - he couldn't even find his own damn mouth half the time he tried to fork in a piece of meat. Dean had helped him through the bunker to the library by holding his arm, but he'd still needed to take three breaks before they'd reached their destination, as his legs ached and he felt weak and as if he had a fever rising again. Cold sweat still covered him from the effort, but the food was good and he welcomed it in with an acceptable appetite. The radio was on to cover the silence where nothing important had to be said; usually Sam would be reading, and as was the case now, Dean was on the laptop surfing for fun.

A storm was coming, but inside the bunker it hardly mattered - they could have a tornado pass directly by them, and they'd be perfectly safe inside. Sure, the outer structure might suffer damage, but the bunker itself was sturdy and most of it was below ground level, so a thunderstorm didn't matter. Sam wished he could have taken a walk outside to feel the approaching spring once more before then, but he was too weak and perhaps he'd even be too weak tomorrow, and regardless of what he wanted, it was likely better that he didn't go chasing what he couldn't see. It was hard enough to not see the familiar walls of his own home, and he didn't want to risk feeling the season pass him by - the long hours made it harder and harder for him to believe that this was temporary. It felt so permanent now when he could finally open his eyes and yet nothing around him changed: he'd made the mistake of looking towards Dean when he'd spoken, causing him to fall quiet mid-sentence at the realisation that the gaze that was aimed in his general direction was empty inside, purposeless, for show only. Or perhaps, if Sam had gotten lucky or his memory was sharp enough to guide him to the source of the voice, he'd looked directly at Dean and confused him. In the end it didn't matter - it was a loss that he couldn't see the older, and he missed his features already no matter how likely it was that he'd see them again in some time.

It was distressing, depressing, almost claustrophobic to never have that veil of black part no matter how much he blinked or tried to rub his eyes back to life. Nothing changed, he had no control over it, and the longer it continued the more desperate he was becoming, more afraid of all the scenarios playing in his head on repeat and, he was almost certain, in Dean's too. It could be permanent - there was no saying that this time, it wasn't. All the evidence pointed towards a forever in all the senses that a forever mattered to a mortal, and the fear of that was a whole different fear from the fear of death: it was similar to a fear of becoming trapped and having no way out. And it wasn't _darkness_ exactly where Sam had become imprisoned in. Even darkness had some shape, something to see in it. This was a void at its purest, the lack of a sense he'd always taken for granted even when he'd imagined the loss of it, the lack of the very sense that had always defined his existence, and he was scared at how different everything was without it. There was nothing to cover up for it, either; surely he could sense a little better what was going on around him by now, but it meant nothing in the bigger picture. He'd gained no superhuman hearing, no sixth sense to movement, no nose that could pick up a track like a bloodhound's muzzle could, and he'd walked right into the frame of the doorway when Dean had been distracted for a second in the least convenient possible moment. They'd laughed, but Sam knew it hadn't been funny to either. Quite the contrary, it had been horrible, it had been scary - it had, in a manner, fully presented to them the reality of what they were facing up with. This wasn't a game, something that they could opt out of. This was real and it would last until it no longer did, a timeline which was decided by fate and fate had never been particularly kind to either of them.  
So, perhaps it was reasonable for Sam to fear, but at the same time he felt guilt nagging at him for the same fact that was out of his control, as if he was somehow above it by reason alone; blindness was not a death sentence, and by reacting to it like it was, he was ignoring the experiences, the lives and the happiness of millions of people before and after him whose disability wasn't blessed with temporarity like his was. He had no right to fear, or so he felt - somehow, he felt as if he should have taken it as a blessing, a reality check, a chance to grow respect for people whose lives were different from his.

And yet there he was, afraid like any other human being would have been.

"You want some more?" Dean's voice cut him off from his thoughts.

He coughed, blinked, perked his head up.  
"Sure. Thanks. It's really good."

"I was bored."

Sam laughed.  
"Well, being bored seems to improve your cooking."

"Hey, I'm not that bad by default."

The younger nodded, feeling the plate in his hand grow heavier as he held it up. He was afraid that when he'd bring it back down, he'd knock over the glass that he wasn't quite sure where it was.  
"Gotta hand that to you."

The plate's edge touched the glass softly, only making a faint sound; Sam reached carefully for it with his free hand and moved it away from the plate, which then landed squarely on his fork instead. He wrestled it free and sighed.  
"Everything still on the table?" he asked with a grimace.

"Yup. Nothing's falling off."

"Good."

The second plate was easier to finish than the first one, partially because the amount of food on it was lesser but also because the first one had already taught Sam how to aim even when his concentration tuned back to the steady flow of speech from the radio. It felt good to have the noise around, even if it wasn't interesting; from the audio book on, he'd noticed that he dreaded silence. Truthfully he feared the night ahead of him more than anything. If he'd need something, even if it was something as simple as a visit to the bathroom, there was no guarantee he'd ever find his way through the corridor. All the doors were similar and, even if he'd manage to find the bathroom and piss _in_ the toilet instead of pissing on, around or next to the toilet, then what? Did he remember the distance between his door and the toilet from the other end, or would he be lost trying every door from one to thirty? What if he'd hit the end of the corridor, get lost in the hallway instead? Would he just sit down and sleep there, wait for the morning to come in the cold corridor, or try to shout for Dean even though it was highly unlikely his voice would carry through both the cement walls and the older's sleep?

He laid down the fork and the knife and drank the rest of his water with a shudder crossing through him.

"Dean," he called then over a brief pause on the radio that heralded the commercials.

"Mm?"

"What about tonight?"

"What about it?" Dean asked.  
Sam felt - heard, sensed - him raise his head across the table, and he could have sworn the older was looking directly at him. He tried to return the gaze wondering how horrible his eyes looked, if they were red and irritated like everything around them felt like it was, or if they were still human.

"I was just..."  
The younger's voice faded. Shame burned at his cheeks, as did hesitation; he longed for privacy but he feared the quiet of it, the endless darkness that even in company felt like a wall separating him from reality. He wondered just how much worse it would get during the night hours when there was nothing to hear, with deafness joining the blindness, or if he could drown it out with the radio or with music, but neither of those options made him feel more comfortable. Even worse, when the noise would chase away the silence by artificial means, how would he ever know if something crept up to him - as if anything would, but how would he ever convince himself in his vulnerable state that he was _safe?_ Safety wasn't a word that Sam Winchester could apply to his life.  
He cleared his throat and leaned back in his seat.  
"I'm not sure if - if it's wise for me to be alone."

"Oh. Right. You think I'm gonna ditch you."

"Huh? No - I just -"

"I'm sleeping on the couch, just in case. You don't have to worry about it, Sam, really."

Sam swallowed.  
"You'll wake up with rock in place for muscles tomorrow."

"Yeah, well, options are a little lacking here. I can't fit a mattress on the floor, so it's either that or we'll have to sleep in a heap on your small-ass queen, and I don't know about you but I feel like we're a bit overgrown for that these days."  
Dean's grimace could be heard in his voice, and it prompted a small defeated huff from Sam. They hadn't shared a bed in two decades as far as Sam could remember; some compromise had always been available. Still, imagining the older cramped on the couch that was comfortable for sitting only and couldn't serve a full-grown man of either of their sizes for even a brief nap was already giving Sam a back ache and he couldn't with good conscience agree to it, so he said nothing instead.

Dean accepted his surrender by changing the subject.  
"But before then - you smell like you could use a bath, no offense. Even if I don't have to spend the night under your arm, I'd still prefer to breathe oxygen, so..."

"Yeah, hint taken, you can stop now, thanks."

"I'll get the water ready and, uh, don't fall and don't drown. I hope that's not too much to ask."

"I'll live."


	3. A Prelude

Night crept in even quieter than usual. Natural light didn't reach much of the bunker so for the most part, it made little difference what time it was outdoors. Dean hummed quietly under his breath as he picked up his blanket and his pillow from his bed, only boxers peeking from underneath his t-shirt like he was already prepared to tuck in for the night. He tried his best to not think about the lack of sleep he was going to get that night and instead pretended that this was a night as good as any other he'd have; he was used to running low on sleep but the years at the bunker had made him somewhat less adaptable than he'd been in the years before. Age didn't help, either; he was far from the limber thing he'd been at twenty, and even a good night spent in his own bed would sometimes make him stiff. Perhaps he was aging early, and with the life he'd led it was almost inevitable that he was, but the couch might have as well been a death sentence, and a prisoner on the death row did best not to dwell too much on the inevitable. So he carried his things to Sam's bedroom, built up a wardrobe on the armchair and set an alarm to his phone to make sure the younger's injury had no time to fester underneath old dressings in the morning even though he'd likely have been awake for hours at that point: it was all part of an elaborate attempt at covering up his fate, the last shred of hope he held for a miracle that depended on nothing but his own positivity. And that wasn't much; he wasn't known for his optimism.

Next thing he did was pick Sam up from the bathroom. He'd managed to drain the bath, dry himself and dress up just fine, and when Dean entered, he was brushing his teeth a little awkwardly but determinedly. Dean joined him, but from Sam's concentration and Dean's efforts at patching him up for the night there wasn't any conversation before they were both ready to leave.  
"Everything good?"

Sam nodded. Dean brought his hand over the younger's back and guided him out of the room: in the corridor, his hand slipped down and grabbed a hold of Sam's, allowing distance between them and more freedom of movement. The pace with which they walked had to be kept down but it didn't take too long before they entered the bedroom; Dean left the door open to let fresh air in and let go of Sam's hand, leaving him to figure out his surroundings on his own.

Sam hadn't been wrong about it; the couch was half a man too short and hard against the shoulder, and if Dean wanted to rest his head on a pillow, he had to either position it upright against the arm rest or throw his legs over the arm rest on the other side and leave them dangling from knees down.

"Told you so," the younger's weary confirmation came as uninvited as it could, and Dean didn't bother responding to it.  
Instead he simply grunted, changed his pose again and landed on his back with his arms crossed over his chest, as there was no other way he could keep them both in; he closed his eyes, determined to sleep even if it was only to spite the comment Sam had dropped, but jealousy bit deep when he listened to the other settle down in his bed that by the sound of it welcomed his whole length and weight in to a soft embrace. The same definitely couldn't be said for the couch, but Dean had made his decision - now he would lie down in it.

"Good night, Dean."

"Night."

And the struggle began. In ten, maybe fifteen minutes Dean could swear he could hear something ticking; suddenly his whole life depended on finding out where Sam had hidden a clock in his room, solely because he had no chance to search for it. In thirty minutes the ticking was driving him insane, and with his eyes wide open every time he forgot to consciously close them, he was ticking and tocking along with the damned thing, soundlessly as it was, the tip of his tongue lapping at the back of his teeth as he counted seconds to nothing. His neck already ached, and he hadn't caught a single minute of sleep - his toes were cold from the restricted bloodflow to them, and the couch was biting into the undersides of his knees so that the whole area ached in no more than forty minutes. He stretched his legs, rested them back down and in five more minutes he had to repeat it to get some warmth back in his toes; every movement was a curse that drove away the evasive sleep hidden somewhere deep within him, and a blessing that ceased the pain for no more than its duration.

When he turned around, finally unaware of how long he'd approximately been awake, Sam let out a deep sigh in his bed and by the sound of it sat up.  
"Are you ever going to give in?" he asked, his voice tired and rough like he'd just woken up, but somehow Dean doubted that he'd had more sleep than he'd done so far.

"No, I'm good," the older insisted, curled up in such a tight ball in the space available to him that his stomach didn't have enough room to expand when he breathed.

"Unbelievable," Sam uttered, falling back in his bed.  
Fifteen minutes later he stood up, crossed the distance between them and grabbed a hold of Dean's shirt with scary accuracy for a blind guy in pitch black darkness.  
"Get up."

"C'mon, Sam, I can do this -"

"Maybe, but I can't. I'm done listening to you huff and turn and moan, there's no way in hell I'm ever going to fall asleep as long as you don't shut up. Come on. It's probably one in the morning already, I know you set up an alarm and I really need to get some sleep before then."

Hesitantly, Dean gave up. He was certain he could hear his body sing in praise when he stood up, lifted his pillow and his blanket and followed Sam to the bed; he rolled in first, sought out the furthest edge of the mattress and buried himself up in his blanket, suddenly aware of how incredibly _comfortable_ a proper bed was when he could straighten himself out in it.  
Sam's weight settled on the opposite side and miraculously no part of them touched once he stopped adjusting himself in.

It took Dean no more than two minutes to fall asleep.

 

 

Sam had no idea what time it was. He'd listened to the steady, deep breathing of his brother beside him for so long that his whole world now existed within those waves, and even if he wasn't completely awake, he wasn't asleep either. Thoughts came and went as if carried by the sounds Dean made, but they were oddly concentrated upon a sole subject.

They hadn't shared a bed since reuniting years and years ago on their quest to find John. If they had, Sam truly could not remember it. Instead he remembered the countless times when it would have been convenient, even necessary, to pay for a double instead of two separate beds - times when they had to cut food to afford it, since gas was a necessity they couldn't drop, but nutrition, it seemed, was well worth sacrificing if it meant they had the foot space to spare.  
As children, things had been different. He'd rarely slept in his own bed if dad wasn't around to keep him in his own, and occasionally it was Dean who abandoned nest and switched into his. At first he'd never carried his own blankets and pillows like he now did, and they'd slept curled up side by side making use of what was already there, limbs tangled, faces pressed into one another, drooling into the hair of the unlucky one who ended up with his head below the other's. And when they'd grown up, it hadn't stopped there; every time John disappeared for a week, they slowly but certainly reverted back to the pattern. If it was possible, they often brought their beds together, but if it wasn't, well, the lack of space hadn't stopped them: they'd sleep with one leg thrown over the other's, knee between the other's legs and arms crossed between them. It was the natural state for them, much unlike this distance they'd created at the cost of sleeping so close to the edges of the bed that it was a miracle neither had yet rolled off entirely. Sam had almost fallen once, but he'd caught himself before it had happened - there had passed the only chance at sleep he'd so far been granted, and a major part of him mourned the loss more than he could manage to feel grateful that he hadn't in fact ended up on the floor.

It had been a safety measure at first: something that brought them both comfort, something that had felt good and natural. They'd grown into it, Sam assumed; he doubted he'd slept beside John for his first years after Mary's death, as John would have likely feared he'd crush him or suffocate him in his sleep. He'd never asked, but it seemed logical that he'd therefore slept with Dean, and Dean - the young kid who hadn't so much as spoken for a long time after watching their whole life burn down in Lawrence... he would have sought comfort from holding Sam close even at night, as he'd often refused to let go even during the daylight hours. Thinking back, there wasn't a real alternative; Dean had regarded him as his responsibility, and John had allowed it, then encouraged it. Sam had simply grown into it, conditioned to only feel safe and good and comfortable when he could feel Dean by his side, smell the sleep on him and hear that steady breathing throughout the night. Now, decades later, that same sound choked him and constricted his chest in the worst way possible, not because he wanted away from it but because he'd missed it so much without ever even realising it before now: he was nearing forty, and all he wanted to do was to turn around and curl up beside his brother like wasn't more than four, feel his fingers entwined with Dean's to experience safety again unlike he'd ever experienced it since the last time they'd shared the same bed.

That memory burned the worst; it had been the night before he'd left for Stanford, and he'd been much too old to be there. They'd held hands through the night and the next night Sam couldn't stop crying, but he'd done it alone, out of sight, feeling more abandoned and lost than he'd ever felt before. It hadn't helped - nothing could replace what he'd lost that night. Not even Jessica, although her love and his love for her in turn had been as deep as hearts that young could muster, but having her had _almost_ made Sam forget the hollow within him. Then, as fate would have it, she was gone and the only thing he had was a void even deeper than what he'd had before he'd met her. How he'd lived, he still didn't know.

The clock in his bookcase ticked on between Dean's breaths, and a thought entered Sam's mind, a thought that was scarier than anything he'd felt in years. He was close to what had made him full for so long - within inches, so close that he could feel the familiar warmth radiate beside him, so close that he could smell the same scent that had given him _safety_ for the first seventeen years of his life. The only thing keeping him from it was the fear of setting loose a poison that he'd barely had the strength to cut out from his life in the first place, and the presence of the missing piece of him made him ache and long for the darkness that resided just beside that place, as if he'd forgotten how much pain he had been in when he'd given into it and allowed it full control over him. Through these years, there had always been _something_ that had made him miss it, an insanity that dwelled deep within him and which didn't care for the pain, only for the bittersweet relief of giving in. And yes, he'd given in completely; he'd never known defeat like in those hours, days wasted drinking in the intoxicating madness, feeling it kill him so slowly and yet so inevitably that it contrasted his life and brought it to full colour - an endless last meal, the fifteen seconds of life left in a brain draining of blood, _carpe diem_ as he stepped off the chair and fell with a noose around his neck. He'd loved every moment of it until the high had left him gasping for air, drained of life and ready to die at no more than eighteen. He'd still loved it, bitterly, after he'd carved out a half of his heart and buried it in front of a motel along an unnamed stretch of a road somewhere in his past, and a part of him feared that he still loved it despite knowing the road that it paved. With that thought he fell into an uneasy sleep, lulled into it by the sheer drain that the memories brought upon him. He dreamed, but when the alarm hours later seeped into his consciousness, he couldn't remember more than the haze that had left him panting.

 

 

There were times when Dean found himself questioning everything. It wasn't enough that he questioned himself in the present moment, no - it extended to past deeds buried so deep that he would have believed them gone if a scent, a sound or a certain vision hadn't brought them back, violently like a kick in the head. Those memories were rushed flashes from his past, the shadows that he tried his hardest not to see, and they caused the floor underneath him to waver and fall into nothing; they made his whole world shatter in seconds, and the pieces scattered into the winds as he was still waking up to the reality of it happening in the first place.

He woke up to one of those moments when the alarm first sounded. His sight picked up on Sam's shape all too close to his; he'd expected him nowhere near, and the room around him was as strange as the other's presence beside him was familiar. When he reached for the phone and the reading light, still questioning what he was doing there, his mind was awake in the worst way possible: one foot in reality, one foot in the dark pit where he'd buried his failures, both kicking up a storm of paranoia and fear.  
His heart skipped a beat when he remembered what night time and deep sleep had driven from him, and Sam turned his head towards him at the long, relieved sigh that escaped his lips at the realisation.

"Good morning, Sammy."

"You've been calling me that an awful lot lately, Dean."

"Oh, so it's Mr. Grumpy today. Sorry for bothering you."

Sam let out a small grunt and fell back into the bed. He rolled on his back and raised a hand up to his hair, and Dean's brows knit close faster than he realised he was making any expression whatsoever at the long streak of red that covered the arm.  
"I think you've torn the wound open."

"Huh?"

"There's blood on you. Let me put on a proper light... dammit."  
The floor was cold under Dean's feet, but he was almost used to it by then. It felt homely; motel floors were never quite as cold as the stone floor of the bunker. It was by that which he always knew he was safe and sound in the morning. There was nothing _quite_ like the discomforts that came with inhabiting the safest base in all of United States - nothing that spelled home like those little details did.  
He made his way clumsily up to the light switch and when he turned it, he saw blood everywhere. Not much of it, but streaks and spots of it everywhere, enough to make him wonder why he hadn't smelled it the first thing after waking up.  
"Aw, crap."

Sam was making his way up from the bed; he had a foot off the bed and another bent in a rather unnatural position underneath him, but it seemed that the weakness and the pain from the disturbed wound had caught up to him mid-movement.

"Stay down," Dean told him, "I'll grab the equipment. You've - uh - it's not bad but I need to fix the dressing, maybe sew up a part of the wound."

"Aw, crap," Sam repeated with a heavy sigh.  
He brought his hand near the wound and felt around the sticky blood stains on his skin, grimacing.  
"Should have known that'd happen."

"My bad," Dean grunted, already by the door, "Shoulda tied it all up better yesterday. Anyway, gonna make sure it won't get worse now. Give me a second, I'll be right back. Shit."

Sleep scattered from him into the still air of the corridor. He could recognise the morning scent that lingered in the air, that wet bitterness that seeped through the stone walls into their comfortable nests, and his dreams that he couldn't quite chase down were shedding from him like old skin still hanging onto him and covering parts of his eyes so that he had a hard time seeing forwards to where he was now going. The bathroom smelled bad, damp and foul like the sewer was getting clogged again, and Dean made a note of it as he gathered up the first aid supplies, some fresh rolls of bandages and the bottle of whiskey left sitting on the bathroom sink like some godawful redneck soap replacement; when he turned back, vertigo caught up with him so hard that he had to raise the bottle up to his forehead for the coolness of it as his shoulder hit the door's frame. Yeah, he wasn't young anymore, that was for sure. His neck and back felt like they were carved out of stone but his head wasn't messed from that alone; what waking up beside Sam had stirred up inside him was gnawing at him like a nest of parasites.  
Slowly he breathed in to regain some control over himself. He reminded himself that he wasn't in a hurry, no one was dying, and there was no reason to run - that he could take a moment to clear up his mind before he'd rush right back into the bedroom and get the job done.

When he looked in to the mirror he saw a pale man with his mousy hair sticking up towards the ceiling; he had bags under his eyes, not all too visible but visible to him regardless, as he knew the reflection and what it should have looked like on a better day. He didn't look like the monster that he'd feared he'd turned into overnight, and although the memory of a brand over his arm like a collective of all he'd ever done wrong ached to those thoughts as if bruising from the pressure, he was still somewhat in control of the situation.  
No, he'd thought he'd been stronger than this. Not quite messed up enough to flip over a half-waking dream, a thought that had only _almost_ crossed his mind and which he still determinedly kept at bay. This was nothing - he'd slept out of his own room solely because Sam needed someone to anchor him. He'd anchored Sam. That was all.

He wasn't the monster from his nightmares anymore.

The cloth of his shirt seemed to have grown roots into the wall of the bathroom when he dragged himself up on his feet again and towards the bedroom. His skin was still tingling when he pushed the door open and his breathing could have sounded less like he'd ran up a long flight of stairs, but none of that really mattered; what did instead was that when he sat beside his brother, he could drag up his shirt without having his horizon tilt again, and cleaning up the blood from his side didn't have a thing to do with whatever could have still been weighting upon the older's mind.

 

 

Sam didn't want to get up from the bed. He didn't want to stand up and have Dean guide him downstairs where he could see nothing, where he'd continue poking his breakfast around rather than in his mouth, and where he'd feel cold and lost in the vastness of space - but on the other hand, staying in bed was a confession of failure. He wasn't ready to give up just yet, not even though the thought of fighting on already seemed crushing, but he still had spirit in him and for that spirit alone he allowed Dean to pull him up and lead him through his own bedroom, the space that he _almost,_ but not quite, had mastered. The corridor spanned on for an eternity, but Dean's grip of his arm and then, half-way through the endless stretch, of his hand was firm and reassuring: there was an end to it somewhere even if they moved at a pace slower than a slow motion film of a turtle struggling to find the ocean.

"Here's the doorway, watch your shoulder..."

Sam watched his shoulder, and as if the irony hadn't been biting enough, he still bumped into the frame.  
"Ugh."

"You'll get used to it."

Used to it. Would he? Would he need to? The questions hadn't grown any easier on Sam since the day before. His mind was clearing up from the remaining shreds of fever and sickness but even though it was progress, he wouldn't have called it a relief; instead of aches, he had an endless stream of fears and worries that followed him everywhere.  
But as much as he'd feared it, breakfast went well. He concentrated upon finding his mouth and although Dean asked him twice if he needed help with handling his food - mainly with cutting it to smaller pieces that didn't continuously slap him on his chin or cheeks like a whole egg had done before he'd given up and fought it to submission - he persisted, and won.

He'd taken everything for guaranteed before. The ability to cut his food into edible bits was the top of the iceberg. He didn't know where he dropped the fork, and his coffee was on the table _twice_ in one breakfast simply because he had no clear idea of how fast he was approaching the mug or how far his hand still was from it. The sound Dean let out at the second time cut deeper than Sam had expected; he didn't know if the older noticed any of it, but he couldn't remember ever feeling quite as useless and like such a huge burden to the other as he did when he sat there, coffee dripping from _somewhere_ onto his hands where he held them cupped as if to catch the drops - and maybe he managed. It didn't matter. His brother wiped off the coffee from the table and from over him and the only thing Sam could manage to think of was the fear that this wasn't temporary; that two weeks from now they'd have to accept that he was never going to be sighted again.

"Maybe you should tape the mug to my hand," he uttered in a low, barely audible voice when Dean planted the third cup in front of him.

The older huffed softly but wearily and patted him on the shoulder.  
"Not that far gone yet, Sam. Eat your breakfast. It didn't get soaked."

Yet. _Yet_ seemed to be the keyword that Sam held onto until there was nothing that he could find left on his plate anymore. He held onto his coffee like his life depended on it and finished it without another grand accident, but he didn't feel good about it - if anything, he managed a drop of relief, but it certainly wasn't a positive feeling. It left him with nothing but the humming silence of the laptop across the table where Dean was typing away, then scrolling, then clicking and falling quiet, and the burning shame and defeat that Sam felt as he sat there doing nothing, still clutching the empty coffee cup in fear of dropping it on the floor. For a while he contemplated just kneeling down from the chair and placing it under the table - at least from there he couldn't drop it anymore - but he abandoned the thought, or rather it simply never came to fruitition as he continued to hang onto the mug like it was slowly becoming a part of him.

There was a brief pause during which nothing happened, one that was too long for Dean to just be reading something on the screen, and the longer it went on the more convinced Sam became that he was being watched. He tried to return the gaze but hell if he knew where his eyes landed, so he kept moving them instinctively as if trying to find Dean from the surrounding nothingness, knowing that the more he moved them the less he looked like he could see a thing. Not that he could fool Dean, but the more obvious he made the fact that he was blind, the more exposed and anxious he felt about it. It had nothing to do with feeling in danger, not with his brother there to function as his eyes for him, but it made him so weak in comparison that just existing like that felt as if he no longer was in control of what happened to him.

"Sam."

"Yeah?"

"You wanna train?"

Sam raised his brows towards the source of the voice, chuckling disbelievingly.  
"Train?" he repeated, "Dean, I don't know if you remember, but -"

"I was thinking something physical. Close contact, maybe light wrestling, defense practice, I don't know. Not _shooting_ , I'm not an idiot, but hell, I don't mind it if we turn off the damn lights and make me as blind as you are. I just think - it might do you good to get back in touch with yourself. We'll just have to be careful with the wound."

The younger hesitated. The thought was tempting: he felt a craving for it, a _need_ for it, for feeling the physical strain and for the chance to forget. And if Dean wasn't kidding about the lights... he wouldn't be outmatched for that alone. His palm slid over his side and he nodded.  
"I think the bandages will hold."

"How about the wound? It's pretty deep. I mean - you think you can do this with it there?"  
Dean's voice was concerned and prompted a grimace from the taller.

"We can just go through the basics. No death matches. No kicking or waist grips. Maybe parry practice."

The older nodded - he made a small sound that communicated as much to Sam.  
"Somebody's gonna break his nose, but I think this is doable... and necessary. Let's do it."

The younger perked a little to the sound of Dean getting up; he listened to his shifting movements and the couple steps that he took, barefooted, across to him. He smiled slightly - no doubt looking a little lost but the message, as sad as it seemed to him, had to communicate - and reached his hand for Dean to grab, and the other did.  
"You weren't kidding about the lights, right?" Sam asked, his feet feeling at least certain as he put his weight over them again.  
He wondered if his balance was getting better, and if it had to do with his mind adjusting to the lack of vision or if it was more about recovering physically from the injury.

"Nah," Dean replied, tugging him on, "I wasn't. I think it'll be good for us both - I know my sight isn't what it used to be, I get blind in the dark too. So... could use some practice on that front."

Sam nodded solemnly.  
"You know... if this..."  
  
He fell quiet for a moment, uncertain if he was even allowed to voice that thought. With a sigh and a shake of his head as they entered what sounded like a corridor and somehow _felt_ like a corridor, too, he decided to go on regardless.  
"If this is permanent," he said and wasn't surprised to hear Dean immediately rush to counter it - of _course_ it wasn't permanent, it wouldn't be, the lore said (even though the lore said very little) and so on, Sam cut him off before the older managed to cause him to forget what he'd been about to say to begin with.  
"If this is permanent," he started for the third time in a louder voice and rolled his eyes, which seemed strange now as if no one else could see his eyes any more than he could see theirs, "I guess it's good to know how to defend myself."

Dean grunted.  
"It won't be permanent," he repeated, but at least spared them both from the rest of it.

"Yeah. Well, I'm just saying."

In the silence their steps led them forwards, Dean slightly at the front and Sam following him by his back to avoid colliding into any further doorways, but he walked with more freedom now, somehow lighter and more secure than before. He knew this corridor - it was the one that led to the physical section, their small gym next to the firing range, and in the gym they had an area dedicated to combat practice where the floor was covered with soft mattresses, large enough that it would be safe for this if only Dean bothered to clean up the equipment from around it. Sam even felt as if he could breathe easier here, like having a clear, close to normal goal in his mind could undo the weight from his chest: it was as if he now had a path to follow, so to speak, in more ways than just having a corridor he knew how to navigate.

"Door coming up."

"Okay."

They slowed down and Dean opened the door, leading Sam inside with more ease than with which they'd stumbled through the much larger one to the hall earlier.  
"You gonna take care of the mess first?" Sam asked just to remind him that he needed to.

"Oh. Yeah. I'll bring you to the circle first, you can sit down or do stretches or whatever."

"Mm."

The mattresses were easier to navigate than bare floor. God, they _felt_ like something; Sam's feet dug into their rubbery surface and he knelt down, knowing exactly where he was because the edges were so easy to trace. He ran his fingers over them and smiled absently even as his ears picked up the sounds of Dean piling up the weights and whatever else they'd managed to scatter around before one of them had lost the ability to safely navigate his way through a mess of that sort, happy to just have that strange relief of having a proper idea of his surroundings. That was such an incredible feeling: based on the shape and texture of what he was kneeling on alone, he now knew exactly what the rest of the room looked like. It was weird that he didn't have that sort of confidence in his own bedroom but somehow he'd never really taken note of it in this manner - in here, he knew the size of the room, remembered where the square-shaped 'circle' was exactly in context to the rest of it all.

He listened to Dean approach him and drop down on the rubbery softness in front of him.  
"You ok there?"

Sam nodded.  
"Yeah. I'm good."

"Okay. So, I piled up everything in the furthest corner from here, so we probably won't end up crashing into it even if we get way, way more rough than we should get with you injured - I'm not taking any chances here. I'm gonna turn off the lights next if you still feel like doing this."

"Definitely."

"Yeah. So, uh," Dean chuckled and Sam could have sworn that he shrugged, too, "expect me to do a lot worse than you're doing and pretty much just find you by falling on you when I come back."

"Please don't do that."

"We'll just have to see."

 

 

It took them a long while to even figure out how to aim. Dean would have felt frustrated if he couldn't hear the smile on Sam the whole time; he could hear it in his huffs, in his voice when spoke, and when they were all silent except for the sound of their arms colliding with slow-paced and badly aimed punches he could hear it in the way the younger breathed. He could almost feel that determination radiate from Sam, and that was one of the things he loved the most in his brother. Sam never gave up - if he was offered a way to fight, he took it and he embraced it.

"Can you find my face?" Dean asked him.

"I'll break your nose."

"Try me."

The slap sent his head to the side and a little surprised noise escaped him. Then he laughed.  
"Ouch. Nice."  
He reached his hand across them and met thin air where he'd by all means expected Sam to be. A little to the right from where his hand had crossed he found his fingers brushing against the younger's hair.  
"I couldn't break your nose even if I tried," he grunted, "but I guess you could break mine pretty easily."

"Lucky shot."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. A slap is much easier to aim than a punch. But considering what I did to the coffee, I... if I punch you, I'll probably send your nose inside your brain and I'd just rather not go there today."

"That's reasonable, I guess. Arms up, I'll try to find them."

"Up. Ready."

The first hit found the side of Sam's arm, slipped right past it and hit him gently to the chest right next to his shoulder - his flesh was soft there, and so was the huff that Sam let out at contact.  
"Again."

The next hit went right to the middle of his arms and he parried well: Dean hadn't hit hard, so Sam's arms barely moved at contact.  
"Got you."  
He hit harder, faster, next time. Flesh hit flesh in a slap and the older found himself smiling - he allowed his eyes close as he repeated it a few times, finding Sam reflecting his punches well even if he aimed differently as if the younger expected him to move as he did.

"Upper left."

_Smack._

"Good. Right."

_Slap._

"Damn. How do you do that?"

"We've done this a billion times, Dean."

"Not in the dark."

"Well, I can't really tell the difference."  
The taller's voice communicated a bitter smile and Dean hit him hard enough to bruise.  
"Your turn?"

"My turn," Dean confirmed, opening his fists and stretching his fingers to flex them before shielding himself behind his arms.  
"Ready."

The first hit found him with some hesitation that was completely absent from the next; neither hurt, but Dean braced himself for the ones that would regardless. He listened to the way Sam breathed and moved to know when and how he'd hit next - the _where_ was a bit harder to predict, but he found himself adjusting from memory.  
The next thing they did was to settle on their knees on the floor: Sam would try to wrestle Dean to the mattress, as he himself could hardly be moved in that manner due to the danger of the wound opening again. They couldn't risk it, so this was done on his terms, and once when Dean felt like he could afford it he allowed himself to make an easy mistake, a slip in his guard, to let Sam tackle him down. The rest wasn't as easy, but he made sure not to strain the other too hard - he knew Sam knew it too, but at times it really didn't matter as the larger would have been able to take him down regardless of effort. He had his size in his favour and when Dean wasn't really allowed to fight back, it was much easier for Sam to gain control in a fight.  
After a while they were both sweaty and breathless, and as such they went back to punches, these more gentle as there was no previously set-up defense and the one defending only had to trust his instincts as to where to parry, and many of the strikes went right past and hit something, usually a shoulder or the chest, before the arm or the hand could prevent it.

Perhaps an hour and fifteen minutes later they were both on their backs, facing the ceiling in the darkness above, and Dean felt satisfied with the effort he'd put in for the day - Sam sounded content, a little exhausted and maybe in pain, but his wound was intact and he claimed the pain hadn't gotten worse from the exercise, so Dean let him have that for now.  
"Up for a movie?" the older asked.

Sam made an indistinctive sound, held his breath and then sniffed, nose probably as full of dry dust as Dean's felt it was.  
"Sure."

 

 

The cold water felt good on Sam's skin. He was tired - exhausted, even - in a way that had little to do with the physical exercise he'd had and a lot more with the strain simply existing had on him now when nothing was quite as it had used to be and everything was more or less new to him. He was constantly learning, but learning was exhausting, and when he dragged the towel down his face he thanked the grand unknown where he'd once trusted God to reside in that the day was over and he could retire to bed. Dean waited for him outside the bathroom, smelling faintly of mint from his toothpaste and a bit of the fresh shirt he was wearing. Sam wondered if he'd always picked up scents like this and this was just his concentration giving them more power or if he was already adjusting to life without sight; it didn't do him much good, only gave a tug at the bottomless fear and nausea residing within him, the pit that only waited for a good time to consume him whole, so he stopped wondering about it and just went with what he had instead. Dean was wearing socks now but Sam was still barefooted, he'd been the whole day as that way he felt like he had more control over his steps. He ran his fingertips along the wall as he followed Dean towards the bedroom, taking a corner here and a corner there until the door was within his reach. The key rested against his thigh in his pocket, warm from his body's heat, and he picked it out and located the lock with his fingers: he kept them there to slide the key between them to open the door.

"You're getting pretty good at this."

Sam nodded quietly. He stepped in first, the key back in his pocket, and avoided Dean's hand even though he felt it reach for him. He spread his hands to his both sides, only slightly but further away from his body than he would have normally done, and made his way towards his side of the bed.

"Hey, Sam..."

"Yeah?"

The younger's foot felt the corner of the bed and he readjusted his course past it before turning around to face Dean who, by the sound of him, was still lingering at the doorway.

"Are we still on the plan? I can stay if you need me, but if you don't..."  
The other's voice trailed off, leaving Sam with a light frown. He lowered his gaze towards the floor hidden behind a veil that now appeared more like dull grey with black spots in it than pitch black darkness, and he stared into that nothing for a while before letting out a conflicted sound.

"I'll be okay," he said then even though the silence creeped him out.  
In a moment, he shuddered to that thought and added a clause to his initial agreement.  
"Can you put on the radio?"

"Yeah."

Dean moved, and Sam already missed him. He couldn't say that - he didn't have the necessary words to ask him to stay, to tell him that his presence gave him a feeling of security like nothing else did, that he was like warmth radiating in the endless void that Sam was trapped in, and instead of saying a thing he listened to the quiet snapping sound that communicated the older turning on the radio before the speakers turned on. The volume slid down until it was just a comfortable noise in the background, something to drown the silence into, and Sam could feel Dean's gaze upon him as he nodded, still hesitating.  
"Thanks."

He shifted, but his feet found the direction strange and he had to seek contact to the end of the bed again to relocate himself on his mental map, yet even once he had it together, he just stood there without moving, and the same seemed to go for Dean.

"Sam..."

"Mm."

Nothing. The silence was full of a pleasant voice foretelling the weather; rain for a couple days, then cloudy and cold. Not the typical weather, but the crops would love it.  
Dean shifted. He placed his hand over the wooden frame of the doorway and stood still again.

"I'm not sure if leaving you alone is a good idea."

"I'll be fine, Dean."

"Mm. No, yeah, I know. I just - I don't like it. What if you need me? Will you stand in the corridor and shout until I wake up, and what if I don't?"

"I'll be fine. It's just a few hours anyway."  
Sam tried to grimace, but he couldn't. The thought of his room without the walls and direction through the darkness made him shudder again and he was certain Dean could see it. They stood in silence again and the older moved, but Sam couldn't tell where or what direction he was now facing before he spoke again.

"I'll leave my door open. So I can hear you, if you need me."

Sam nodded slowly. He felt cold in his guts but this was for the best.  
"I'll see you in the morning."

Dean laughed dryly.  
"God, I hope you will. Good night, Sammy."

"Night."

The door closed, but Sam realised he couldn't tell which side Dean had left himself on before he walked away and his footsteps echoed through the corridor. The paranoia didn't part with him, however; with him gone Sam felt vulnerable again as if behind him or anywhere at all danger could be lurking, just waiting for him to be alone as he was now, for Dean to no longer be within a hearing distance, and then...

He mapped the room with his palms, patting and tapping and sliding and feeling a rough picture of the place for himself. There was no stranger there - not even under the bed - and with a deep frustrationg in the pit of his stomach Sam fell on the bed and wondered if the lights were on or off. Not that it mattered, he'd be in the dark regardless of whether electric light graced his skin from the outside or not. He couldn't even aim right when he fell on his bed and the top of his head collided rather painfully with the bed's frame: he adjusted himself with watering eyes and covered himself with the blanket more to hide himself from the world than to prepare for sleep. His heart raced in his chest and he felt cold and sweaty at the same time, and uncomfortable above everything else: it felt as if he'd never been quite as awake before as he was now, lying there with nothing to do and wondering where the hell his exhaustion had escaped him. Dean was nowhere to be heard anymore but Sam could hear his own blood rushing so loudly in his ears that he had to wonder whether he'd be able to tell apart any sounds beyond it at all although the radio was still certainly going on; it was playing some guitar ballad, but Sam couldn't concentrate on it either.

With a heavy sigh he turned over and curled up, eyes closed and mind determined to turn away the racing thoughts inside.


	4. An Infection

Dean sat on his bed, back leaning to the wall behind him. His loose t-shirt was tucked between his thighs but it still managed the width to droop down over the bed on his both sides like a giant sack or a blanket he'd worn by accident; he watched his toes twitch as he sat there, unable to feel at rest and uneager to even try to catch any sleep. He was tired, but not physically so; the exhaustion was solely that of the mind and he didn't know what to do with it. He wanted - needed - a drink so badly it seemed to turn his tongue to sandpaper and sticky gum, but on the other hand he didn't dare to move either. What if Sam would call for him and he'd be out there somewhere looking for beer?

Of course Sam wouldn't. Sam wouldn't make a sound the whole night and that'd be that, but Dean couldn't budge. If he'd learned one lesson in his life it was that he had to be there to look after his little brother, and if he turned his back... oh, God, if he turned his back, everything would always go to hell no matter how damn unlikely it seemed when he made the decision. He'd tried to count the ways things could possibly go wrong, but he couldn't really figure out that many: the only thing he knew for certain to pose a real threat were the nightmares that Sam occasionally had, and if he was honest to himself, he was expecting one of those tonight. The problem was that he'd hardly know about it, and Sam likely wouldn't tell him, yet just knowing he had to face it alone without even knowing if he'd woken up at all - the only thing Dean could pray for was that he'd make a loud enough sound for him to hear across the distance to his bedroom. He'd likely wake up to it and it wouldn't be the first time either, and still he worried that he wouldn't, and perhaps it was that thought that kept him there, staring through the open door at the dull grey in the corridor outside.

Worse was that he still hadn't quite recovered from the scare he'd had that morning. Everything since then hadn't felt quite _real_ and he'd almost made a note of it before catching himself from forming the words, thinking them too seriously and coming a little too close to risking really saying them out loud even though he knew he never would. There wasn't anything he could say. How could he ever bring something like that up?

_Sam, I didn't touch you last night, did I?_

He hadn't. He hadn't even wanted to. It wasn't like that and consciously, hell, he knew it too. He knew he hadn't done anything and that he would never do anything like it again; it wasn't some hidden urge just beneath his skin waiting to be unleashed. No, that wasn't the problem. The problem was that ever since... years ago, he hadn't trusted his own hands, his own brain, to tell him right from wrong. He didn't trust his own self-control like he was some kind of a starving rabid hound just _waiting_ to smell blood - he always expected to find himself tearing out the wrong throat, making a mistake he couldn't take back even though there wasn't anything there to set him off. The Mark hadn't made it easier for him and even now he rubbed at the spot again, feeling a ghost of a burn, a strange need, to succumb to the darkness in him.  
But it wasn't like that either. He wasn't sure _what_ it was exactly, but he'd lost control once and he would have never gotten it back if Sam hadn't found the strength to put an end to it.

Dean leaned forwards, placed his forehead gently between his knees and closed his eyes. He smelled the warm scent of his own body and the clean sheets surrounding him and he wondered for the thousandth time if he was beyond salvation; it wasn't in the religious sense, he didn't care about heaven and hell anymore. He didn't care about afterlife. He worried about the judgement he was sparing for himself, for the last hour, even though he knew somewhere not so deep within him that no matter what he'd always plead guilty and he'd always condemn himself for what he'd done. There wasn't anything more to it, but he feared the day when he wouldn't be able to keep struggling in order to turn that tide anymore, and this morning had made blood rush within him in a way he'd almost forgotten. He'd felt so filthy and so damn tired, disappointed, to rediscover those fears within him, as if he'd been disappointed in himself at finding out that that was really his past and that he couldn't shake it off, dreading even now that he _still_ couldn't trust himself to look at Sam without becoming what he'd been decades ago.

Did Sam look at him the same? Sometimes Dean even questioned if he remembered it all - he certainly seemed as if he didn't. But he hadn't nearly been young enough to forget. He just simply had to be as good at pretending as Dean hoped that he was. They'd buried that past behind the years they'd spent parted and underneath layers upon layers of trying to make a difference after then, but even if Sam was content that way, Dean didn't know if any of that mattered at all. He had a festering wound of his own hidden underneath so many filthy dressings that he worried that if something would ever tear all that away from him, he'd discover nothing at all where the rot had chewed through his flesh and soul alike.

"Cas, you got your ears on? Man, I just need to talk to somebody. I hope you're in a place for idle chatter, because here's a monologue coming for you."

 

 

Sam couldn't tell where he was. His palms slid around the bed but he couldn't find a single waymarker, as if there wasn't shape to the realm around him at all: he kept patting around in growing fear before he finally could locate at least the bed's edge. A sigh of relief escaped him, but it was cut short when _something_ made a sound in the emptiness surrounding him. He froze on spot, heart beating loudly and painfully in his chest, and his eyes had to be wide open with fear staring at nothing at all as his hand still pushed against the wood that he'd found just a second earlier. Nothing seemed to be moving, but that sound had certainly come from somewhere, and before long Sam had charged up from his bed now that he finally had an idea where he was exactly, and his fingers gripped the gun as uselessly as only a blind guy could point one around. He was panting, mouth open and tears in his eyes, fearing as much that he'd find something that wasn't supposed to be there as he feared he'd find Dean but only after he'd shot him in the chest by accident; holding up the goddamn weapon seemed like the least logical thing, but Sam couldn't bring himself to drop it again. At least if something would attack him, it would need to disarm him first. But then again - how certain was he that he was in his room to begin with?

He shook his head and forced his hands down, still hanging onto the gun but at least making it safe again. This trail of thought... he wouldn't go along with it. Not now. He was in his bedroom; the radio was still on, it was still making noise as it had been when Dean had left him there with it, and he was safe, and there was no one in his room. Slowly, still hesitating, he placed the gun on the bedside table and shivered from nothing but sheer horror, waiting to be attacked now that he was defenseless. Nothing happened. He felt a gag strangling his throat but refused to give into it, and in a while the sensation passed; he considered sitting down again but he couldn't feel safe and more than anything he couldn't feel secure that this was real at all now that he'd made the stupid mistake of questioning it. The hell would he know, anyway? Nothing made sense in the world he was trapped in - he wouldn't know if the world around him changed, if it changed all the time. It sure felt like it did, even now that he was making his way towards the door it was as if he could no longer locate the same path around his bed that he'd used before going to sleep.

Had he slept?  
He couldn't remember. He wasn't certain. But he'd dreamed - or had he simply changed location, changed realm?

"Dean."

He shuddered to the sound of his own panicked, desperate voice, as quiet as it was.

"God, please. Dean. _Dean_."

His hands found the door's handle: he couldn't breathe anymore. He really wasn't sure if he'd slept, or if anything at all was real. What if nothing had been real for _years?_ How would he know?

"Dean!"

The corridor echoed. Then, within seconds, there was a sound of something crashing on the floor in the direction of Dean's room that left Sam weak in the knees and literally choking as if he'd mixed up breathing and swallowing and now couldn't undo the knot resulting in his throat: he gagged, coughed, drew in breath like a drowning man and stumbled onwards in a haze of pure terror. He sobbed; it was the stupidest, weakest thing he could have done, but from the stumbling and trying to move forwards without falling, from trying to breathe when every inhale felt as if it held no oxygen at all, he had little control left to watch over the reactions from his body to it all.

"Dean!"

Running steps; barefooted steps, just like his but faster, stabler.  
"Sam, Sammy - God - it's okay, c'mon. It's _okay_ , Sam."

The older's hands pressed over the taller's shoulders - he was doubling over, almost crashing to the floor but somehow still moving onwards. Sam dragged them both down with him, and the sound of their knees colliding with the hard floor communicated what the flash of pain didn't: they'd fallen down, and Dean's hiss meant that he'd been hurt, bruised, too. Sam gasped for air again, hands gripping something that felt like cloth but he wasn't sure _where_ it was on Dean or if he was gripping Dean at all even though he could feel the warmth and the scent of his brother right there. It had to be him, and if it was him, then this was really, _really_ stupid.

He tried to find the words - any words to tell Dean that he was stupid and sorry and sorry and stupid and that he'd perhaps had a nightmare that had turned ugly only after he'd woken up, but the only thing he could manage was a blurt that he couldn't understand with his conscious mind and his subconscious was still too busy conjuring up ghosts around them to care.

"Sam, it's real. This is _real_."

But how could he trust that? He held tighter, sighed, gasped for air and found his head pressing against Dean's shoulder or some similarly round yet bony part of him. To his distant surprise the man wrapped his arms around him and pulled him close and he didn't even hesitate to respond to it, feeling utterly and purely afraid like a small child driven from his bed in the night by the monsters he'd created in his own mind. His hands found flesh and before he realised it meant he'd dug them under the shirt the man beside him was wearing he'd already latched onto him by that feeling alone, fingers gripping him by the shoulder blades and nose drawing in deep inhales of that one thing that could still tell him the world was where it was meant to be.

"You can tell, Sam. You can tell the difference. It's real and you _know_ it."

There was certain roughness in the way Dean brought his hand up Sam's hair and pressed his head against his own shoulder, firmness in the grip that Sam felt the so-called reality around him lacked. He hated being held, but he'd never hated being held by Dean; it had always meant that he was safe, no matter how bad it got. That there was still something there that he could lean onto, and damn, he needed that now.

"I'm so fucking stupid. God, I'm _sorry_. I woke you up. I shouldn't - I should know better."

"Shut up, Sam. Breathe it out. I wasn't sleeping anyway, couldn't get the hang of it. Don't worry about me. I'm _fine_."

 

 

Something was off in the way the younger felt against Dean, but Dean couldn't immediately figure out what it was. Then, slowly, he started suspecting it was his temperature - he seemed too warm even for a man who'd just crawled up from the bed and made his way through half a corridor in less time than it should have taken him if he was moving at a humane pace. Worse was that he was clearly terrified and he should have felt _cold_ from it, but he didn't, and as inconspicuously as Dean could he reached to take Sam's temperature. With a sigh he nudged the taller off him and planted him on his knees on the floor in front of him: his complexion was pale but his cheeks were red again, and although he barely knew where to look for Dean, he was doing his best to stare in the opposite direction out of shame and shame alone.

"Think you might be running another fever there, Sam."

The younger perked up somewhat, frowned, and the reached a shaky hand to touch himself first on the forehead and then on the arm, palm sliding over it in a hesitant manner. Then he, too, sighed.  
"Think you might be right," he said with a grimace, his voice still lacking in strength and ending with him clearing his throat.

"Better if I take a look at the wound again. If it's getting infected..."  
Dean's sentence died to an agreement between them.  
"Come on, then. Let's get back in your bedroom."

He was tired: sleep tingled at his lids, stinging and tickling uncomfortably even as his eyes themselves felt dry, but his mind was very much awake now. He paused Sam in the middle of the corridor, leaving him swaying from side to side looking sickly from fear and from the rising awareness to his physical condition alike to grab the supplies again, and with those in tow they moved back to Sam's bedroom. It was a mess; there was a gun on the bedside table almost falling off and Dean pushed it further before tending to the blanket covering half the floor. Only then he allowed Sam to make his way to the bed, at least somewhat content that he wouldn't fall over trying to do so. Carefully he removed the dressings from the wound and to his relief he found it only somewhat red and warm to touch; he cleaned it anyway, trying his best not to irritate it further, but it seemed the fever might be stemming from nothing but the recovery process itself.

"It looks good enough to me."

Sam nodded.  
"It throbs a little. I think it might be swelling."

"I'll check it again in the morning."

"Stay, Dean."

Dean froze. Then, slowly, he moved the supplies back in the bag and tossed it on the bedside table next to the gun, and after thinking it through for a moment he even hid that in the drawer before saying anything.  
"No problem," he said then, chest aching as he breathed.  
He didn't look at Sam when he turned around and crawled to the other side of the bed, but he did once he was there, smiling before he realised that despite looking like he was seeing perfectly fine, Sam couldn't notice the gesture. Another quiet, weary but light sigh escaped Dean and he reached his hand over the younger's shoulder, hating to see him hang his head and stare unseeingly into the bed like he'd fucked something over badly enough to scar.  
"Sam, c'mon."

"It's just - I feel like..."  
Sam shrugged. He appeared disgusted with himself and Dean wanted to say something to counter that but there was nothing to say, not yet at least. When the younger didn't speak anything in the seconds that passed them, however, Dean had to take a blind guess at as to what it was that was bothering him.

"You're not a burden."

The taller lifted his head slightly but didn't even attempt to look towards Dean. In a minute his posture fell again and he sighed.  
"I'm sorry for freaking out," he said instead.

"To be honest here, Sammy, I'd be pretty freaked out too if I woke up and couldn't see a damn thing. And really, I wasn't sleeping, it's not like you interrupted anything."  
A crooked smile crossed Sam's lips, making Dean feel rather achieved. He shook his head and patted the younger on the back.  
"Do you want me to turn off the radio now?"

Sam shook his head.  
"If you can sleep with it on," he said, leaving the implication open.

Dean nodded.  
"Sure thing."

 

 

The ache was worse in the morning. Sam felt like it wasn't the only thing; his mind felt as black as the world surrounding him even with the strange, unshapely splotches of not really light that were dancing around in it. He didn't want to budge - he felt that if he'd try, he'd throw up, but that wasn't the reason. He simply didn't even care to try: what did it matter where he spent his day? There was nothing out there. He didn't know what time it was when he woke up and he didn't open his eyes, he did absolutely nothing but listened to the inane chatter on the radio and wondered if that'd be the sole content of his life from now on. If, indeed, he'd just lie there forever listening to other people's experiences, slowly losing grasp of what had been, what the world had looked like, perhaps even what colours were. What was there to life without seeing the world?  
He turned around, curled up; his back registered the warmth from Dean, but his skin was sensitive and hurt when he moved.

7:00.

More music.

What did the sky look like? He remembered the blue, he could conjure up clouds: he imagined birds dashing across the canvas and something inside him ached to it, ached physically along with the throbbing wound that now felt hot underneath the dressings. He breathed air but felt like a fish out of water; for the sake of it, he tried to recall what different kinds of fish looked like. What the aquarium had looked like when they'd visited one with Dean years and years ago, mostly as a joke even though Sam had hurt the whole way through remembering a day he'd spent with Jess. Thinking of Jess now didn't ache like it had used to, but thinking of Stanford did. Sam wondered if he'd ever really get over that. The whole thing had been a mess - it had been his only chance at freedom, and years later he'd found out everything about it had been orchestrated. But if everything about it had been... then was the rest, too, somehow manipulated? He hadn't left solely because he desired freedom, because John's control of him had turned to a strangling grip he couldn't escape and because he couldn't take looking forwards and seeing himself where he was today, mutilated by a lifetime of hunting and a ruin in all the ways that counted. No, he'd left to put an end to something - to free himself, but first and foremost, to free Dean. He couldn't cut Dean off of John, that he'd been wise enough to know even back then, but _he_ could be cut off, and by removing himself from the picture he'd given Dean something that Dean had never had the chance or the courage or even the will to reach for on his own: the chance to be a person on his own.

Even now that the man breathed restfully behind Sam's back, Sam wondered if he'd done the right thing. He'd cut them off without anesthesia and it had hurt because they'd been sewn together more and more firmly through their whole lives to the point where it seemed that everything about them was tied to the other from the get-go, but up until that point Dean's life had only served one end: to look after Sam, to give _Sam_ the chance to live the life that Dean couldn't. Of course it had been only to the distance that John had defined for them: Sam was still to be with them, always, but it had never been Sam's sole reason for existence to be there for Dean, not like it had been Dean's purpose to exist for Sam. And he'd been made to learn that lesson by heart, God... he'd lived through Sam in a way that Sam had feared he'd never stop doing. He was so selfless, so damn sacrifing; where Sam's selfishness had been excused and allowed, Dean's had been stomped on until it wasn't there anymore. When Sam had been 18 and he'd told him he was leaving, he could have as well told Dean he was about to cut his throat. There was nothing there for Dean, not as far as Dean could see it. And Sam was desperate, too - what they had was killing them both but it had seemed that only he had what it took to leave. Dean loved too strongly, he was too loyal, too damn dependent on the little they had, to even consider it. Of course it hadn't been out of altruism: the call of another life had never been culled from Sam and he'd desired it above all else, yet one of these things didn't exist without the other and in the end there was no denying just how big of an impact the circumstances between him and his brother in particular had had on the decisions he'd made.  
They'd stayed in contact the little they could during the first year. The second it hadn't been that much: a postcard, hastily written, from Dean every now and then. Sam remembered feeling like his lungs were crushed and his heart had ceased beating every time one of them reached him. He'd started throwing them away after a while, and that had been it. That had been it for the phone calls too: he'd never answered another once he'd thrown the first card out and watched it go on an early morning with the rest of things thrown away, hidden in one of the identical black bags that the truck was consuming almost half a block away from where Sam was poking his head out of the window. He'd felt too guilty and he'd feared he'd say something wrong - it wouldn't have been the first time. He'd made love with Jess much more often after that as if to drive away the devils within him with her touch, but the truth was, sometimes she made it all worse for him. Maybe she'd seen it, and she'd definitely known there was a lot that he wasn't telling; she'd been too damn clever, sometimes almost impossible to lie to. And her smile... out of all the things that Sam was afraid he'd forget, that one thing never seemed to fade from him at all.  
She'd seen through him, she'd asked him often what weighted on him and why he was keeping so much about his family. Perhaps he would have spoken more if it didn't hurt so goddamn much; he made it seem like it wasn't anything bigger than the usual, a boring family drama and nothing more, that of course they weren't _completely_ cut off, but in all his determination he'd still been _so_ close to confessing the full truth more times than he cared to count. He'd never talked about it, talked how he felt like he'd left half his soul back there, back in that sweaty motel the night before leaving. Like he'd ripped his insides out - he'd never made a mention of it.

He'd drowned himself in library books and he'd tried to find the answers from child psychology, from law, from the studies made on the subject and anything even remotely like it, from here and from there and he'd never come up with much. Sure, he knew _why_ things were the way they were. He'd learned the theory of it all quite soon, as soon as he'd dared to put himself back in that place. But he didn't know the things that couldn't be put into the books: he didn't understand why it had been them, why he couldn't let go, and what it was that had kept him coming back much after he'd already realised it was killing him from the inside. He didn't understand why he felt victimized but not by anyone or anything in particular: why he was angry, why he was scared, and why he wanted nothing more but to crawl right back in there and start over again.

8:00, the world news again.

Slowly Sam rolled back on his back and faced the ceiling that he was almost certain was still there somewhere above him. He reached his hand across the distance between him and Dean and brushed the side of his palm against the hand of the older's; the other, he assumed, was gripping the blanket. He wished he could have looked, made sure Dean was sleeping soundly and his expression was as restful as his breathing was, and he wondered if Dean ever thought back to it. Knowing him, he had to, but some things - some things you just didn't talk about.

His eyes felt dry and stung as he closed them, water rushing between the lids to undo the damage.

 

"Not to be an alarmist or anything but this looks really bad right now. Damn, that happened fast."

Sam swayed. Dean tried to ignore it and remain an optimist about the blue-tinted swelling around the wound, but he couldn't.

"The good news," he uttered, forcing the words through his unwilling lips, "is that it's definitely a normal infection so we can use normal antibiotics for it. The kind that give you watery diarrhea and make you throw up, the whole mile, but I've got to go grab them now before it gets bad and we need to amputate you from the waist down."

"Not to be an alarmist," Sam repeated with a hoarse laughter.  
He brushed his hair back and nodded.  
"I'll be okay."

"Yeah. It'll take a while for me to get them, though."

"Can you make a playlist out of the audio books? I... guess that'll be how I'll spend my day, then."

Dean sighed.  
"Yeah."  
He thought back to the research he'd made the day before and crossed his fingers, hoping Sam would take the bait.  
"At least you don't need to get up, since you said you didn't want to."

Sam grimaced.  
"Silver lining."

"I'll bring you the biggest thermos we have full of coffee or whatever you feel like drinking and please, just _please_ don't get lost on your way back from the toilet."

"I'll need water, too. How long you think you'll be out?"

"Like... six hours, at most."

"Six? Where the hell are you going?"

"Might need to go out of town for something, don't worry about it, I'm not ditching you but I can't exactly drag you along either. You need rest."  
Dean found himself gnawing restlessly at his lip before he bounced up.  
"I'll bring you something to eat too. The muesli or whatever."

"Thanks."

Sam was hesitating, and Dean gave him the time in case he wanted to ask or protest or voice some thought; the radio was still on, but in the silence between them two the older got up and turned it off. He sought out the tablet and started making a playlist as he'd promised.

"Dean, hey."

"Heya, Sammy. I'm still here, just putting together the books."

"Yeah. Look - I'm sorry about last night."

"I told you, it wasn't anything. Shit happens."

"I'm just trying to say that even though I fucked it up, it doesn't mean you have to keep sleeping here. I'll get used to it, it'll probably go better tonight."

Dean glanced at the younger, rolled his eyes and returned to the tablet.  
"Stop worrying about me, Sam. You're the one with the infected stabwound here, not me."

"I get that, but look -"

"No," Dean cut him off simply, "I'll stick here for a bit longer. It's not like it hurts me or anything. Besides, I'll probably sleep better here anyway. I want to make sure you're up one hundred percent as soon as possible and if that means we'll need to share a bed for a bit, then that's _fine._ "

Unexpectedly, the younger smiled. Dean wasn't sure if he _knew_ he was smiling or if he realised that Dean could see it, but nevertheless if Dean hadn't spotted it, the silence between them would have remained indecipherable and uncertain.

"Three books," Dean finally cut it with, "You can't make through even a quarter of it based on the length, but there it is. I'll grab the things from kitchen and make you some breakfast before I go, and I'll call you every once in a while to make sure everything's okay. Alright? The phone's where the gun used to be."

Sam huffed.  
"Right. I'll live."

"Good. That's pretty much what we're aiming for right now, anyway."

A hint of the earlier smile returned on the younger before he leaned back to the bed's end.  
"What about the wound?" he asked.

"I think it's best to give it some air, so I'll just leave the thin bandage on it for now."

Sam nodded.  
"Okay."

"You're holding something back."

The younger turned away and Dean felt like strangling him for the silence. Then, perhaps surprisingly, he chose to talk anyway.  
"I just don't like the secrecy. Six hours?"

"C'mon, you're a big boy now, Sammy. You can survive six hours."

"That's _not_ what I mean."

"I'll show you when I get back. I promise it's nothing big or dangerous, I just couldn't find a store locally that sold what I need. Seriously, chill."

Dean raised a brow at the unimpressed look on the younger's face but could have hissed in relief when defeat spread to conquer it instead and Sam nodded. He still didn't look happy about it, but when did he ever? It'd make sense when Dean would get there, but he didn't want to spoil the surprise like this. He'd have to put the younger right into it and that way he wouldn't manage any unnecessary defenses or excuses or, in the worst case, fears relating to it; it'd just be him and the quest in front of him, just what he needed to get some control over the situation.  
And if it wouldn't help? Hell, Dean just might get him the damn puppy instead.

"I'll be back in a moment," he said in a cheerful voice, sliding out of the bed only after pressing the play button on the tablet's screen and planting it on Sam's lap.

 

 

Sam could only imagine the open road that took Dean away from the bunker. He breathed calmly, but his insides felt hollow and he was growing nervous already knowing he was alone - even if the bunker was the safest place in the whole of United States against everything that could possibly come after him, he still couldn't shake the feeling of being exposed now that Dean truly wasn't around to confirm his safety for him. He'd just need to cope with it, and he would, he knew that; he concentrated wholly upon pouring himself a cup of coffee that the older had prepared to his liking, careful to keep his finger on the inside of the mug to know when it would fill up. Keeping it balanced was difficult so he only poured it midway through, and when the steaming hot liquid touched the calloused tip of his finger he closed the mouth of the thermos and returned it to the bedside table. At first he landed it squarely on top of his phone, but the next try went a bit better - he could only drink a couple gulps, however, before the phone was ringing.

With a troubled huff he reached his finger to the tablet and tapped the screen, listening both to the explanation of what was on the screen and what he was poking at (Dean had set that up the voiceover for him; Sam felt stupid for not realising it was an option before then, but getting used to it was a task on its own and at times he felt that perhaps he would have done better just taking his chances without it) as well as to the ringing phone, afraid it would end before he'd find and manage to double tap the play button somewhere in the upper middle of the screen to pause the audio book. He did manage, with a layer of sweat rising to his forehead, but as he finally could reach to pick up the vibrating phone he was already sweating from the fever alone and the rest really didn't matter.  
"Hey, it's Sam."

"Sam. It's good to hear your voice."

Sam closed his eyes and smiled, sighing.  
"Cas. Hey, man. How are things out there?"

"Busy, I'm afraid."  
Castiel's voice was warm despite the weary tone in it, but when he breathed out, there was a tone of embarrasment and apology in the sound of him.  
"I'm sorry I can't make it to help you. It's... it's unfair; I should give you the priority, you deserve it and it would hardly take my time, yet..."

"No, no, Cas - I get it, I do. Don't worry. I'll be back to normal in a few days, it's not a big deal. I'll - uh - take it as a learning experience. Some people live their whole lives like this, it's..."  
Nothing?  
The nothing was crushing. It ached inside Sam's brain alongside the real headache stemming from the infection taking hold of his flesh and throbbing alongside with the nausea swelling within him, and it made him feel claustrophobic in the vastness of it as if the void was a result of some kind of a cocoon closing him in tightly.  
But he didn't have it bad. He'd make it, and pretending anything else was selfish, ungrateful.  
"... gonna be fine, Cas, really."

Castiel hesitated for a moment.  
"You don't sound too good," he said then with his voice concerned and doubtful.

Sam sighed.  
"The wound's infected, Dean's out right now to get me antibiotics. It's nothing bad yet, don't worry about it. I've had infections before, some of them a lot worse than this. I'm running a bit of a fever but that's about it."

"Another infection. Are you certain your body can take it?"

"It's not from the poison, it's just bad luck now. We won't let it get worse. Human medicine can take this round - it's not as bad as it sounds, really. Don't worry about it. We'll let you know if we run into something bigger than we can handle on our own, Cas."

A defeated sigh escaped the older but Sam heard the smile returning to him.  
"Alright. I'm still sorry I can only give you a call instead of being there to make you better."

"I know. But, uh, maybe the rest won't hurt me, and Dean needs it too. Do you have any idea when we'll get to see you again? For you, not your powers, Cas. We miss you. We both do."

"I... know. Dean asked me the same. I hope it'll be soon. Perhaps next week. I miss you, too. This mission has taken much, much longer than I thought it would and the longer I'm gone the more I realise how much I wish I was there instead. Home isn't the same with my brothers and sisters. Only you two get my _references_."

Even years since he'd discovered them, Castiel still sounded so proud to be in on the jokes; Sam chuckled to that tone in his voice and shook his head, hand pressing his coffee cup against his forehead both for the warmth and to keep it from tilting too far.  
"We watched a movie yesterday," he heard himself say, still smiling, "Or Dean watched one and I listened to it and his commentary. It's true, we could use a third one here, if just so that you could do half the dialogue with him. It's weird when he dubs two parties in a single conversation."

The angel let out a longing sound.  
"I miss movies," he said out loud, but as if he was talking to no one in particular.

"We'll take you to a theatre when you get out of there, Cas. That's a promise."

"Thank you, Sam. I... should probably let you rest now."

"To be honest, I could use the company right now."  
Sam hesitated for a moment.  
"The bunker's... home, but it feels so different this way, you know? It's huge; I feel really small in it. Like I could get lost in a corridor."

"I sometimes felt that way in Heaven. I have not always been welcome in all of its corners, and some areas still feel unfamiliar to me. Threatening, even wrong, as if I should not be there."

"It's hard to imagine you feeling threatened anywhere, Cas. You've faced up to archangels and I watched you do it."

The older let out a soft, warm huff.  
"I am just a soldier, Sam. There are angels more powerful than I am, and forces, even within Heaven, that can still be hostile to me if I intrude. But you are right - I don't fear much. Neither do you; I'm certain you are no smaller than you were before, and you've made the base your home. You'll find your way."

"As long as across the corridor is the furthest I need to go, I guess."

Castiel nodded with a small sound, and Sam could hear a car passing by.

"Where are you, exactly?" he asked.

"Nebraska. I just had a very unpleasant visit with a local preacher and I thought calling you would make me feel less aggravated - and it has. Thank you."

"Nebraska. Huh."  
Sam chuckled.  
"Take care, Cas."

"You too, Sam."

 


	5. Braille

There was freedom on the road unlike anything achieved elsewhere that Dean would know of. He loved the feeling of the wind blowing at his face through the window he'd just barely opened to balance the day's sunlight, and the cars that passed him by weren't asking him into a race - he was content going the way he was headed now, despite the pressure within him telling him that he was miles and miles too far from home.

It was refreshing to be out of there, he had to admit it. Sam wasn't the most cheerful companion despite trying his best to not show the toll his condition took on him, and being able to take off from it for a few hours knowing he was still doing this to help the younger was a welcome blessing. The corridors in the bunker smelled of fear and Dean loathed it, not because he loathed fear in itself but because there was nothing he could say or do to make Sam feel better, to tell him that the information they had was absolutely correct and even if it wasn't, Cas would _eventually_ come by and he'd certainly heal Sam's vision again. But when would that be, neither of them knew, and Dean trusted Castiel's word when he said that he had no better idea than the brothers did about it. He'd drop by when he had the chance but it could be a month more to go, and a month more would be crushing to Sam; even with the promise of all this being temporary, his ailment now was real, and Dean knew he mourned the loss like it was a permanent one. Hope was a painful thing to hold onto when it offered no relief, only an uncertainty of how much longer the suffering would go on, and Sam would hardly get used to being blind. He would soldier through it one way or the other - most people did, even knowing there was no remedy for them - but that didn't mean he wasn't affected by it. The longer it went on, the clearer it was that it did affect him, and Dean got his slice of it too. He seemed to run on low imagination and most the things he even thought of offering to keep the younger in a good mood, and to give him a sense of company and participation despite what he imagined was a darkness separating them at all times, were things that one needed sight to participate in. Most things in life suddenly appeared in a different light in Dean's eyes; he saw them as things Sam could do and things that Sam couldn't, things that he'd taken for granted but now knew to appreciate better.  
Even driving... he didn't know what he would have done under those circumstances. Sam had said that morning that he didn't want to get up, and while Dean had mostly chalked that up to the fever, he knew that if he'd be chained down like Sam was now, he'd be depressed about it even if he knew relief would come soon. It didn't matter: the thought alone was making him anxious, suffocating him. He hated losing control - Sam had to hate it even more, Dean knew it but not the whole depth of it. Things like that couldn't be measured. Pain couldn't.

He took a turn for the city and kept driving, foot caressing the gas pedal but hardly pushing down: perhaps there was an extra element of care in that. Sam had no one but him, so getting in an accident wouldn't do now. He himself had woken up that morning feeling better and even the brewing infection in the wound he'd damn well _tried_ to care for couldn't entirely take that from him. He had a plan, and after what he felt had been something of an overdue breakdown yesterday he just wanted to keep his mind on the present time and forget about the rest. If he could make a difference today, he would, and he liked to think he had chances even as he finally made the stop in front of the address he'd written down the day before while Sam had been clutching his empty coffee cup looking sadder than a lost puppy in a downpour. Hell, that academic in him might as well embrace an opportunity to learn something new while he was predisposed to it. He'd love it, even if he didn't know it yet.

The door let out a cheerful ring as Dean moved past it.  
"Hey there," he called with a lopsided smile to the woman behind the counter; she seemed taken by him, a sign that he rarely missed and an opportunity he was predisposed to using to his advantage.  
"Your webpage said you sell books in braille. Got something for a thirty-something with a sharp mind and way, way too much time on his hands? My brother was blinded in an accident recently, and the man _loves_ reading."

Maybe Dean wouldn't be a good teacher, but that'd give them something to tackle together - and by the looks of it, this employee would have a great time helping him find exactly what he needed, maybe more.

 

 

"Sammy - I'm home."

Sam opened his eyes; his ears felt flooded but he welcomed the sound of Dean's footsteps in the room.

"Took a bit longer than I wanted to. It's five in the evening."

"That's less than you threatened me with," Sam noted, surprised by his dead voice.

"Yeah. Half an hour off, I guess. But hey, how're you feeling? Jerry dealt me the antibiotics, you'll take one every morning, afternoon and evening and the infection should stop giving you trouble well before the end of the course."

The bed, despite its softness, felt like it was growing spikes now. Sam pulled himself up and reached for the thermos, locating his coffee cup nearby it and picking that up. He was going to pour himself a cup, likely the last cold one, but Dean pulled the thing away from him and did it for him; Sam wanted to tell him off for it but swallowed the words, for at least Dean didn't have to dip his finger into the mix to know when to stop.  
After receiving the cup again he downed a gulp, cleared his throat and swallowed the nasty aftertaste from his tongue still preparing a response.

"I'm okay. Sick, but okay. The wound throbs a lot but I managed to find a painkiller from the cabin a couple hours ago, it's still working, I guess."  
It had taken him nearly an hour to achieve all of that, and for the main part of it he'd sat on the toilet trying hard not to faint or throw up into the array of medication he was holding and trying to choose from, but it had been well worth the effort - the pills made him slightly tired, but at least the ache was down to bearable.

"Shit," Dean uttered, and Sam could hear the grimace in his voice, "I forgot to bring those in. Uh, I'm glad you found 'em, anyway. You feel like you can get up or do you want to stay in bed? You need to eat something with these - I bought yoghurt since it's good for your stomach..."

"Dean."  
Sam sighed, flopping back in the bed with the coffee cup stabilized in his reached hand mostly by the power of answered prayers.  
"You need to calm down."

"Huh?"

"You're way, way into the hen mother zone right now and it's making me really uncomfortable."

"Oh."  
The older let out a small chuckle.  
"Nah. You'll need the yoghurt. Are you gonna answer my question?"

"I think I'll stick to bed. The outside world felt too cold, I'm not sure if I want to partake."

"Okay. It's your choice. Anyway, I'll bring up a cup and you'll take the first pill right now since it's the midpoint between afternoon and the evening, so a perfect time to start."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"It doesn't have to. I brought something else for you, too, but that can wait until you've eaten. You want more coffee?"

Sam shivered. He sipped from the cold cup again and shrugged, unsure. His head throbbed too hard to give him much space to think and he could have sworn he no longer had needs, only a knot where his stomach had used to be; the sickness made him unwilling to do anything that would prolong his life, so making decisions was mostly pushed upon his blunted logical mind. Finally he shook his head.  
"Tea, maybe. If there's anything drinkable left."

"I'll check that out. I'll be back in a minute."

The older's footsteps led him out of the room that Sam was picturing in his mind. With every thud it seemed that his body responded, throbbing to the sound or the slight tremor rushing through the floor and up the bed's frame until it reached him. He shivered again and downed another gulp from his coffee, back aching where it rubbed against the wood, and he could barely bring up a single coherent thought in his mind: everything was muddled, a shade of white-grey like his vision seemed to have turned to. It wasn't an improvement, rather it seemed that his brain had altogether forgotten what darkness looked like. Now it had turned to seeing the emptiness for what it was, not full of anything but simply inexistent. The pressure over his eyes had changed, too; now he barely felt them there anymore, like his body's subconscious concentration had shifted from them, putting them down as a lost cause. The multiple bruises from yesterday's brief and mostly useless training session could be mapped out along his arms and chest from the way the fever was highlighting them, and Sam smiled to them, expecting his eyes to be closed but having to blink a few times to assure himself of it. It was impossible to tell for certain: everywhere, the void looked the same regardless of whether his lids were covering it or not.

His free hand sought about the bed, now trying to locate the tablet again. He didn't particularly want to resume the audio book despite having left it at an interesting part before giving in to sleep, but he simply wished to know where it was - if he'd pushed it near the edge in his sleep or if it still was there somewhere where he'd dropped it. His fingers ran over the texture of the blanket that covered Dean's side of the bed (and apparently that was what he had now began calling the space to the left from his own) and eventually found the hard but smooth edge of the tablet. His palm brushed over its back to feel the logo in the middle of the surface and, as if his mind was on autopilot, he began rubbing back and forth there to figure out the difference between the plastic and the metal, the subtle changes in texture where one part was slippery in a rough way and the other slightly stickier yet smoother to his fingertip, both separated from the other by an edge, an outline, sharp and protruding enough for Sam to feel it distinctively every time he crossed from one side to the other. The whole of it made him smile contently, bringing him the feeling that it was as it was supposed to be - slowly he moved across the surface until it bent ever so slightly to the side, and at the end of the shorter side of it he found the power button. His smile widened even as he retired his hand and sipped his coffee again.

It made so much sense.

 

 

Dean found his fingertips cold when he relocated himself on the bed, pushed aside Sam's tablet and dropped the bag before them. He'd loaded the younger with just yoghurt and the cup of tea for now; more could follow later, he even had the approximate ingredients for John's cure-all. Even if it wouldn't cure all this time, it'd still have to do - it was a gesture, not a dish, almost like a secret message delivered from one boy to the other like it had been when it had been given to them by their father. John might be long gone by then, but this message wasn't: the unappealing mess that his signature sick day dish was held a promise of care and love of the kind that couldn't be spoken in words.

_I made this for you to get better, because I love you, and I'm sorry you're feeling awful and I can't help you. Let me try. Let me be here with you._

"Okay. Sammy?"

"Mm-hm?"

Dean's voice seemed to drag Sam out of some deep thoughts, as the younger's head perked up - he almost jumped - and he turned towards Dean with the spoon slowly sliding out of his mouth. The pill was gone, Dean noted with a hint of satisfaction and calm within him.

"You feel up to trying something new?"

The younger hesitated for a moment before bringing another spoonful of plain yoghurt up to his mouth. He sucked the spoon clean, pulled it out and shrugged before giving Dean a proper reply.  
"I'm not sure if now's a good time, Dean. For anything."

"C'mon, do it for me. I went two towns over for this bullshit," Dean tried to persuade him, using his best imitation of Sam's own puppy eyes as if it could have made a difference for them.

"Mm."  
More yoghurt.  
"Just don't expect anything out of me. What the hell did you do, Dean?"

The smile on Sam's lips, as faint as it was, was the best response Dean could have hoped for. He chuckled, opened the bag and dropped three books on the bed before them. One of them was for learning the very basics; it was a small book with very thick pages and clearly defined braille versions underneath every word, and in the first half of it, the system was explained throughoutly in a simple, yet hopefully effective manner. The second, an ironically colourful book, was for practicing reading common words, simple sentences and short stories: it was a kid book, but Dean had found it quite straightforward, so he'd chosen it over the boring and much less ironic black-and-white textbook meant for people over the age of twelve.  
The third book...

"You remember when you said like _years_ ago that if you just had the time, you'd pick up the first Harry Potter again?"

"Yeah. No. I don't. But I remember thinking about it, so - uh - kind of. I also vaguely remember you picking on me for that. Never got around to doing it."

Dean nodded. He was quiet for a while, gathering his nerves to present the plan to the younger. Then, with a smile, he turned towards Sam, fingers bent around the thick and heavy copy of _The_ _Philosopher's Stone_ , and he dropped it on the man's lap right underneath the cup of yoghurt that he was still holding. In exchange he traded out that cup, as it was quite empty enough already.  
"I bought you a copy."

"What?"  
Sam sat there like a stone statue, unwilling to reach for the book with his hands. He looked dumbfounded and Dean couldn't blame him, but the response - the surprise and doubt on him - was a good sign that he latched onto and hoped it'd lead where he needed it to.  
"We have it in the library, Dean. And besides..."

"Yeah, yeah. You're thinking I'm pulling the lamest prank in the history of pranking and giving the blind guy a book, ha _ha_ ha. Though... now that you put it like that, you're right. It is kind of hilarious. But seriously, put your hands on that thing. I had to actually _buy_ it so you can't just flat-out refuse to humour me."

Sam grimaced. Then he sighed, lifted his hands to spread them dramatically, annoyedly, and placed them over the covers. He swiped his right hand over the book in a clearly frustrated manner, perhaps expecting to feel nothing or just find out that the title had been bolded in the paper, but there was no paper on these covers. When he registered the braille writing he froze, hesitated, and then brought his fingers over it again: in a second he was already turning the pages, running his fingers down in an uneven motion through the pages, feeling out the shape and size of the book and the thickness of it.  
"Is this... Dean, is this in braille?"

"Yup. It's a book _for_ blind people."

The older watched Sam's lips stay parted. It was strange to see his green eyes stare into nothing as he felt about the book but damn, he looked so surprised - so utterly _hopeful_ in contrast to the withered thing he'd been for days now.

"I... I can't read braille."

"Yeah, I also know that. That's why I bought _more_ books."  
Dean picked up the rest of the books he'd left on the bed and piled them over the one Sam was still handling like it was the key to a different dimension. When it was all there, Sam immediately ran his hands over the new items and in Dean's eyes, he could have been reading already. Of course he wouldn't need this in the long run, but Sam loved learning. If he'd just keep up the excitement that Dean could see in him now, he'd keep practicing when his eyes were better already, and one day he'd be the guy reading out labels in the dark bathroom when the lights gave out and someone needed painkillers.  
"You think we could start out with this tonight, Sam?"

There was a second, a very _long_ second, during which Sam hesitated and Dean held his breath. Then, slowly, the younger nodded, the smile returning on him with a sense of relief spreading into his expression that Dean couldn't trace anywhere.  
"Yeah. Yeah, that'd be - great. I've never tried this. I actually thought about it when I was in Stanford... but I just never... I just never, you know?"

"Yup. I figured, when's a better time?"

To hear the younger laugh was worth every goddamn penny that Dean had put into the trip.

 

 

Sam could feel the shift in Dean's aura as they worked on the first book; the confidence faded from the older, shed almost audibly, and the more confused Dean became the wider the younger was smiling despite the deep-seated ache in his bones. Dean wanted it to be smooth, but what he didn't understand was that learning never was - they were both new to this, and despite the advice offered to them by the pages that Sam could only run his numbing fingertips over, it was a whole new language and such weren't learned in days, not even weeks. It would probably take months without proper tutoring before he'd be able to so much as decipher the first page of the Harry Potter book Dean had bought him, but it didn't matter: just realising that learning was still an option brought him a sense of control over what had previously seemed completely out of his hands. His blindness, before then a concept so much bigger than what he could comprehend, was momentarily reduced to an opportunity out of inconvenience: he did have an edge to learning to recognise the patterns because of it, an unique sense of patience that stemmed from a corner within him that he'd often used when tackling events outside of him that required all of his concentration to untangle.  
Yet the truth was that while he'd often had to work with touch to see what his eyes couldn't, it had never been quite this literal, and he simply lacked the sensitivity to properly work out the shapes that he was feeling. The patterns underneath his touch became a flow of idle bumps and his concentration, as firm as he was making it, tended to slip from understanding them as language and simply sought them out as sensory curiosities: his huffs seemed to translate to Dean as those of frustration, which deepened the sense of desperation within him.

An hour into it Sam couldn't hold back the laughter anymore: he closed the book on his lap and grabbed Dean's hand before he could pull it away, and he held it firmly for a fleeting moment before releasing it, a smile still on his face as he turned towards the older hoping to at least seem like he was looking at him.  
"Dean, it's _okay._ "

"What?"  
The older's voice was defensive, and out of a habit, Sam rolled his eyes in response.

"It's okay to be new to it. I don't get it, you don't get it, and that's _fine._ We'll figure it out. I'll learn, don't worry. You can't make it happen in a day and neither can I. I just - I'm glad that you did this for me, but we both need a break; we need to rest up before we continue trying to decipher this."

Silence. Dean shifted, grunted; Sam felt him lay his hands over his lap again and then just sit there, probably brooding for a bit without saying anything. Then, finally, he seemed to accept what Sam had said.  
"Okay. So - uh - I know we didn't get far, but... how's it feel?"

"Amazing. I didn't even _think_ of this. I just - kind of accepted I'd be doing nothing until, um, until my eyes get better. So - so thank you, Dean, really. Thank you for reminding me that there's... more."

Saying things now seemed oddly easier than before, as if it helped that Sam never had to face Dean directly when saying them. It felt natural to thank him, to speak to him honestly; there was no point in keeping anything from him when Sam depended on him for everything, but the more he thought into it, the more he realised there just wasn't any reason to begin with. The barrier between them was lifted by the void, and right now Sam felt that it wasn't separating them but rather keeping his shame from preventing him from speaking his mind. Perhaps it wasn't all good - perhaps he was being bratty, moody and all-around an unpleasant person to be around for Dean, and perhaps he was leaning onto the other too much in his inability to function as an individual, or more due to his _idea_ of himself being unable to remain such in his own right. Perhaps he was forgetting the separation of him and Dean, becoming dependent in a way that was beyond unhealthy for the both of them, but there were perks to it, perks that came in the form of honesty when it really mattered.  
And he was thankful. He wasn't ashamed of telling Dean exactly how. The only thing he could hope for was that Dean would accept it, accept that they were both human and that learning wasn't a miracle, it was an unsteady process for not only Sam but himself, too. His sight wouldn't make him an expert in braille any more than Sam's blindness made him native in it.

"Well, I'm glad," Dean spoke after a moment's silence, much stiffer and still uncomfortable by all the cues that Sam could read into him.  
"So - how're you feeling, otherwise? Need a nap, a napkin, or maybe a stroll?"

Sam considered. His body throbbed and the heat inside him was only matched by the cold on the outside of him, but overall, he certainly wasn't doing _worse_ than he'd been in the morning.  
"A couple of painkillers and I'll be fine," he replied then with a shrug, "but I guess I won't be doing much today. Maybe we can keep practicing later."

"Sounds good to me."  
The bed creaked when Dean moved, sliding off the bed in an uncertain manner, hesitating; his palm landed over Sam's shoulder again and he gripped it briefly.  
"I'll bring you more pills, then."

"Thanks, Dean."

The older's footsteps - sock-covered, soft and almost inaudible if not for the thud of his weight upon the stone at each - lingered in the room for a moment but by the time they moved into the corridor, their pace became faster, almost hurried like there was an emergency to attend to. Sam coughed quietly just to prove himself that the room around him still existed: it wasn't easy to believe when silence pressed over his ears like water flowing in to drown him, but there it was, the open yet constricted space surrounding his blanket prison. He moved the book from his lap to where the others lay and for the sake of it tried to decipher the title on the largest of them, but he couldn't make out a letter of it, not yet. It wasn't even written in the type of braille he was learning now - the book was more advanced, type two, with shortened words to fit the story on the pages.  
Sam sighed, but his lips were bent into a crooked, weary smile. He felt so good inside for the first time since landing in this mess, determined and back on a track wherever it would lead him. Without realising it, he brushed his hair down in slow, half-hearted movements, attempting to make himself look less like a bedridden patient and more like a person, someone with his own two feet still there to carry him wherever he needed to go: he hadn't lost himself yet. For a while he'd thought he had, he'd thought that there was nothing but this bed and the unseen space that surrounded him like a maze that he couldn't navigate, but the promise of written words breaching the barrier of sight had suddenly sparked a realisation of some kind within him that had more to do with himself than the world around him. It'd pass, of course; tomorrow, he'd still be blind and he'd still be illiterate in these new circumstances he'd been shoved into, and he'd feel despair again, he'd feel crushed under the reality of his existence, but tomorrow wasn't today and he'd surely hang onto this relief as long as it would last.

 

 

The water ran down Dean's head and back like gentle touches, something soothing that brought peace into his mind. It washed off the dust of the day from his skin and he felt like he could have stayed there forever, but at fifteen minutes he already feared he'd overstayed; in here he couldn't hear Sam's voice if the younger would call out to him. But why would he? What could Sam possibly need in the thirty minutes he took for himself, when he'd just left him back in the bedroom in as good a state as was humanely possible for him?  
The man's lips parted and he whimpered into the flow, bucking his head up to greet the massaging sprays of water that didn't care of the impatience that struggled to conquer over the relaxation in him.

Maybe the project hadn't been the victory march he'd expected. Braille was a whole new language that he'd never so much as thought of before, but Sam was excited and that was the whole point - it was enough for now, even if neither of them had much of a clue as to how to tackle the task of actually learning to read from bumps on paper. So far it was like divining from tea leaves, the mud tracks which Baby left on the floor of the bunker's garage on a rainy day - nothing made sense. It seemed easy, damn, it was just dots on the paper, clear enough for Dean to see, but once they were all together forming words and sentences, it was trickier than just that.  
Not that it mattered, however, he reminded himself again, determined to smile at the white wall ahead of him. His green eyes peered at the drops running down the smooth surface of the tiles and he took in that view, still more aware of just how fantastic it was to be able to view things; the more he watched Sam struggle with lacking this ability, the more he appreciated the fact that he didn't have to. In his eyes, everything was clear and sharp, spare for the shadows that occasionally cluttered his view when sunlight hit them from a certain angle; his vision was aging elegantly, not in a rush, and right now it was a blessing that he definitely counted.

In a week, Sam would regain his sight. In a week, everything would be back to normal - they'd be hunting again, likely, or at least preparing for it. Everything would make sense where days now consisted of fumbling around in confusion, trying to adjust to the current circumstances; the anxiety that chewed Dean's insides would be gone again and he would be able to breathe freely.  
But for now, he couldn't help the growing concern within him. There was an ease between him and Sam that was both welcome and terrifying, a sense of freefalling into a zone he'd carefully kept himself out of for years, decades even. He tried not to think of it like he tried not to think of what he'd done when he'd allowed himself to dive into it head first, as it would be gone once Sam would be back in full health - and even more important was that he didn't just in case his doing or non-doing would somehow affect the eventual separation. They had to, even if Sam now depended on him for so much; the space between them was crucial, more so than many other things, more so than most everything Dean could think of. It was about caring to keep that distance, as it ensured safety for them both from, hell, Dean didn't know what exactly; from him? From something toxic that still lingered between them? Whether that something was his fault or an element entirely out of his control ultimately didn't matter. What mattered was that he did have control over it, even if he woke up sweating in the middle of the night thinking he'd lost it again. He hadn't yet - not for real - and as long as he determinedly kept his mind off of it, he wouldn't again.

Perhaps it was determination born out of worry and concern about what was inevitably happening now, but Dean didn't want to think of it like that. As he stepped out of the shower and rubbed at his raw-feeling, newborn skin fresh from the burn of the hot water washing away the dead cells that had covered it before, he just wanted to think of safety, of certainty in place of uncertainty and fear. Sam showed no sign that he was worried, so why should Dean have felt any different about it? If Sam wasn't headed back into that zone, then certainly he wasn't, either. There was a subtle language between them that Dean had tuned into through the whole day and while it was clear that something was changing or had already changed, it wasn't alarming, merely slightly concerning in the same way as dark clouds hanging by the edge of a sunlit warm day that was meant to be spent outdoors. He'd enjoy this while it lasted but he'd keep at a careful distance: surely he knew how to do that. He'd done it for most of his life now. He'd avoided excess honesty to a point where sometimes there had barely been honesty at all, he'd avoided physical comfort when he'd needed it to the point of feeling deprived of it altogether, and in this punishment he'd felt secure that he still had full control over himself, over what he had with his brother, and it was good that way. The price wasn't too high to pay when it wasn't just about their relationship but about the safety of Sam himself, and to a lesser degree, the safety of Dean as well; he didn't care much for the latter but the former couldn't have been more precious to him. Sam deserved to live free of the curse that had fallen over them before, even if Dean still felt like he was balancing on a rope that separated control from the lack of it, the world of men from the realm of the beasts. That was the very nature of him, always at the edge, and he was strict to himself - he had to be - but the reward was that there was peace between them, a balance that was good, and it was more than enough. It was a blessing, one which Dean always remembered to consider, that they still had each other like this: that they were still close, that they could still love each other despite everything that had happened, and as far as he could help it, he wasn't about to let that change.

Not over this, not over _nothing_.

He pulled on a clean shirt, a pair of boxers and, out of still feeling too exposed, headed for his own room for sweatpants too. He wasn't a beast. He hadn't been since the Mark had taken control of him, and even then the things he'd done to Sam... well, they'd survived it, both of them had. He was fighting it, fighting everything, the world but most of all himself, and he was winning, he was good at what he did these days.  
This week wouldn't change that.

He wouldn't let it change that.

 

 

Sam struggled for sleep. He heard Dean breathing beside him somewhere but the bunker around him had suddenly grown twice its size, as enormous as it had already been, and the emptiness made him feel vulnerable no matter how tightly he was wrapped inside his blanket. Every creak, every thud from the old pipes and the AC and the rest of it all seemed to startle him - fever didn't make it easier, as it blurred the line between reality and hallucination like only sleep could do to a healthy person, and as if to mock him, he was beyond tired as well so that sleep was sometimes clutching him firmly only for his consciousness to drop him cold in the midst of a waking nightmare, leaving him to fear the shadows at the corners of his non-vision. It swirled around him, reminding him that his eyes were wide open again to stare blankly into, he hoped, nothing whatsoever: his palms were wet with cold sweat, or then it was the fever dying on him, turning to lower temperature through excessive sweating. He was dripping wet and cold from head to toe and he felt as if he was spinning, but he couldn't say if it was the infection or the tiredness that caused it, or if it was perhaps simply a trick played upon him by his mind. He'd had similar feelings before, often when he'd been still in his bed waiting for the night to claim him for sleep and he'd concentrated too much upon the weightlessness spreading into his limbs, eventually losing track of his position on the bed. This wasn't new; he shouldn't have worried about it, but what did he not worry about now?

Slowly, afraid to disturb the older's rest, he flipped over on his back and breathed out; his breathing rasped and he choked, eyes closed and muscles tight to keep the noise down as he coughed. It didn't feel like the first signs of pneumonia, but it was uncomfortable regardless, and the fit lasted long enough for him to stay completely still in the absence of it just to be certain Dean hadn't woken up. The older hadn't: his rest was deep and sometimes he twitched in his sleep, and instead of scaring Sam, those slight movements comforted him, reminded him that he wasn't alone.

Why were nights this difficult now? Was it the vulnerability, as undeniable as it was, or something else? He seemed to have lost his ability to simply close his eyes and dream, but it could have been all the rest he'd already had over the day's span, sometimes unnoticed by himself as it was much easier to drift off when the world around him hardly changed when he did.  
Ironically, he saw in his dreams still. Sometimes he knew he'd been sleeping solely because for a while, he'd been able to look around and see in detail, even if it was just his room and nothing special at all; upon waking, it was like the world had been reversed. Suddenly, he'd open his eyes to see nothing, when upon closing his eyes he'd seen the world.

Now, he was drifting again. There were shapes moving about him, shapes that grew and fell again with Dean's breathing. He moved closer to them, curled up and his mind concentrated upon the dull throbbing in his head and in his side that was now covered with fresh light bandages: he heard his own huffs quiet down to the rhythm of his heartbeat and then vanish altogether, and heat pressed against his forehead and held him by his hand, pressed to his thigh and kept him comfortable and safe against the swirling that surrounded him. He held onto that point of contact, body shivering occasionally as it came closer to awakening, but his mind was decisive to stay quiet and blank - something crawled in the vents and he thought he was peering at it, but there was nothing in the hole and the sounds moved away from him. He was sitting up now, and sunlight was pouring in from the doorway: he gazed at it, mind empty with the fading sounds of something on all fours rumbling further and further away inside the walls, and he felt good, calm and rested, although a part of him knew he was dying and this was one of the last days he'd feel comfortable like this.  
It didn't make sense but he didn't dig at that feeling - he didn't wish to concentrate on the impending doom, just this moment when everything was alright, and when he looked down again he had Dean's hand in his and Dean was asleep, curled up beside his body, breathing in and out and radiating warmth although his body was uncovered and Sam worried he might have been cold. The younger shifted: he stood up, set upon finding a blanket for the other, but when he moved towards the light in the corridor his eyes flew open to a real sound beside him and he woke up from the strangely comforting dream.

The door was open: he heard it knock against the wall, heard Dean's footsteps as the man was walking away, stumbling and hurrying and by the sound of it only half-awake.

"Dean?"

Sam's voice barely carried across the room. He brushed his palm across his face, confused and not entirely awake even though his heart was racing from the shock the unexpected noise that had woken him up had left behind - a noise that he could no longer identify - and just like in his dream he slid out of the bed, only this time he only had a vague idea of where he was going with no bright lights to guide him towards his destination. He headed after his brother, slowly and with growing frustration mixing in with the worry: he'd never find Dean like this, but he needed answers. Where the hell was he going - and why?

"Dean!"


	6. Flashbacks

Dean's heart thundered. He was shaking from head to toe and covered in cold sweat, and his fingernails were digging into his arms on both sides so hard that it hurt. Somehow the pain seemed to come from outside of him, it wasn't immediate or bothersome but more like a noise somewhere far from him - something akin to the sound of a highway just outside a motel room with cars frequently charging by. His mind couldn't latch onto it: the only thing his mind was latched upon was the sheer terror and self-hatred that had consumed his insides and carved him hollow to become a lair, a nest, for those feelings.

He wasn't entirely lucid yet. He barely remembered getting out of bed even though the bruise on his side confirmed he'd bumped hard into the table on the way out just like he recalled. What he did remember was slowly becoming aware of how _close_ he was to Sam - how their bodies were intertwined, Sam's leg between his thighs, his hand clutching Sam's side and their fingers joined in the middle, faces so close that their noses were brushing together. And he'd woken up to it not to get out of it, to return to his own side of the bed but rather to push _into_ it, as his consciousness wasn't fully there and his body was content in that warmth and that feeling, so _used_ to it despite the years that separated him from the last experience (and indeed, every cell in his body had been replaced since he'd last slept that close to Sam; none of him should have remembered how it felt, but he'd been drawn to it like the heart was drawn to return home and his soul throbbed like every last inch of his body did).

He felt like gagging but his body was numb like he'd torn it from sleep so swiftly that his mind's connection to it hadn't yet awakened at all. He hadn't, not consciously, controlled it through the escape he'd made across the empty corridors, bumping into walls and doorframes worse than Sam had done on his first attempts at moving about, but here he was now in the library, seated on the armchair set between two bookcases, hands over his face and lips parted to make way for heavy, scared breaths.

Maybe he was in control while he was awake, but he wasn't in control while he was asleep. There was no question about it - he should have realised it before, known to expect that this would happen. Perhaps he could trust himself around Sam when he was conscious, but his subconscious played by the rules of hedony, seeking nothing but satisfaction in ways that he couldn't allow himself. It wasn't about - it wasn't about _that_ \- but it was about something and that something gnawed within him instilling more and more horror that had a firm hold of his chest, and he felt as if his insides had disappeared as there seemed to be nothing there anymore, nothing to weight him down into the seat beneath him.  
He trembled, almost cried; he certainly had tears in his eyes. This wasn't supposed to happen anymore. He wasn't supposed to crave to be that close, not a part of him was, he'd _sworn_ , he'd sworn to never let himself go back there again, sworn he'd never need it or seek for it ever again, sworn he wasn't the boy that had died when he'd -

God, when he'd raped his brother.

He wasn't. He wasn't. He _wasn't_.  
He couldn't be.  
After all these years, after all the discipline he'd put himself through, the swearing and the playing by the rules and setting, _creating_ those rules and then heeding to them like the laws of the God who'd forsaken them - he wasn't the same kid who'd desired so blindly he'd ignored what should have been obvious, _beyond_ obvious, to him in the lack of response and -

Dean had knees too close to his face. His head had sunken past his palms, past his wrists, and he was doubled over in the seat now; he breathed but he felt like he was choking and the floor trembled underneath him. This was bad. This was _bad_. And he had no idea how to fix it; how to go back in the room and pretend that he hadn't tried to become one skin with the man who made up half of his soul.

He loved Sam. He loved him so much, but he couldn't do it right; it was too fierce, too deep, too consuming. He'd always fail one way or the other, solely because he'd never controlled that feeling. God, _God_ , it hurt so much to fear himself - it didn't matter that he didn't, right now in this moment, want things that were beyond what was right. It didn't matter because the things that he so badly craved for were mere gateways to hell, simple steps on the stairway that led him to places where he'd lost himself before. Simple things, innocent things; he'd learned how that went for them. Learned how the embraces grew too long, the touches ventured off the trail that was set for them, how mistakes happened and how they both looked away to pretend that they didn't know what was going on. And even now just the memory of that still instilled the old response to the act that had once been all too common for them. His body certainly didn't care about right and wrong or even what he desired. It knew what it had been conditioned to, and the arousal from those memories, the sudden resurfacing of them all at once at nothing but a _touch_ , was real and firm and added a horrifying depth to the terror that clutched Dean within its grip.

Dean felt like his eyes were glazed over when he watched Sam stumble into the room. His throat was closing in on him and he was choking back a sob, pretending he wasn't present in the hall like a complete douchebag; there was worry upon the pale features of his injured brother as he bumped, blind and helpless, into the table and bent over it with a grimace of pain flashing over him in response to how the impact twisted his infected wound. Every cell of Dean knew what he was supposed to do: he was supposed to let Sam know, here and now, that he was in the room with him, that Sam had found him, but he was voiceless out of fear and conflict and the despair that nuzzled with his heart with enough violence to bruise.  
He opened his mouth, even, but only a breath came out, and so he watched as Sam moved around the table and headed for the kitchen instead: his fingertips painted lines over the walls as he went, his steps steadier than they had been before.

"Dean?"

Dean swallowed, closed his eyes and mouthed a response.  
"I'm here," he said, but his voice didn't carry across the space to Sam, and in a moment's time the younger had vanished from sight - only his voice remained as he kept calling Dean again.

He'd inevitably find Dean at one point, or rather, Dean would inevitably have to let him know that he was still there. Even now he could sense the concern and fear growing within Sam like it was something he felt in his own numb body: he'd undone the completely doubled over pose he'd taken, but his hands were now covering his ears, loosely as if only pretending to be blocking out sound. He felt like a young boy again, completely lost and crying out for someone who knew what to do, how to control himself, but he had no one - no one knew about this, about them. People had known, he was certain of it; John had, Bobby had. The knowledge had always only added to the shame he felt, the uncertainty in his relationships even beyond that which he had with Sam; they'd known but there hadn't been words for them, for what words were there for things like these to begin with? John had done what he could, and when nothing else had worked out for them, he'd let Dean get caught, perhaps hoping that time away from Sam would separate them in some way that he couldn't achieve on his own. Bobby had watched them grow up that way, too tightly knit and impossible to wrench apart even for a minute at a time, but his hands had been tied on the matter, or perhaps he'd just thought it wasn't his place, that he shouldn't go poking around because it wasn't his business, they weren't his boys, that maybe he'd make it worse. Maybe he'd even lose them, and certainly enough he _had_ lost them once - not for his action, not even for his inaction, but because John didn't take well to perceived betrayal. There might have been others along the way; upon a time, it hadn't been too hard to tell from them. The sickness had radiated from them like a fever even when they'd thought they'd been so smart at covering it up: that no one could know. That hadn't lifted from them once they'd reached the breaking point and started pretending nothing had ever happened - it wasn't by chance they were read as they were so often, why they were offered a single bed no matter where they went, why they were prodded with questions about the nature of their relationship.

_No, we're brothers._

Were they? Had they ever been at all?

 

 

"I'm here. Sammy, I'm here."

Sam turned; his bare heels heated against the stone floor as he spun around but he ignored the burn and almost stumbled forwards to the direction of the sound of Dean's voice. The other had sounded weak, completely exhausted, and worry grew within the younger's core as he moved towards him until finally his hand found another hand and he could allow it to guide him closer to an appropriate distance that he was unable to judge for himself. He could hear the heaviness in Dean's breathing, the same exhaustion that toned his voice, but also a smile that he couldn't track down to anything - perhaps it was meant to ease his mind, or perhaps it was there only to calm Dean himself down. The older's palm slid over his cheek, landed over his shoulder and pushed him down until he was sitting down in a chair that was still warm where Dean had sat upon it. Too warm, in fact; it felt as if the older had been there for the whole time Sam had looked for him, but the younger suffocated the spark of hurt that the notion brought upon him. He had no idea what had prompted the other's escape, so he wouldn't judge him for it this soon.

"I'm gonna grab a beer. I'll be back in a minute. Just... stay here, okay?"

"Dean."

"Please, Sam."

The pleading tone had the distinctive shade of panic in it. Sam nodded: he leaned back with his heart picking up its pace again. Something was definitely wrong - he just didn't know what the hell it was. A breathed-out thank you later Dean was moving again, and the same fear echoed in his steps as presented as an almost corporeal aura around him, and Sam waited, frozen, for him to return. Sooner than he'd thought to expect, Dean's footsteps did carry him back to where he'd left. The older knelt in front of him, popped open the beer and downed a lot of it at once, but after the sigh that followed there was a silence that didn't sound like it was about to break.

"I'm going back in my own room," Dean finally stated after what felt like an eternity had passed without either of them finding words, and the announcement made Sam's heart sink.  
"I'm sorry, Sam, but it's for the best."

"Dean -"

"No, listen. You're a grown man. I can't babysit you like I babysat you when you were seven. There are no monsters underneath your bed. You know that. You have a gun for it."  
Nevermind the fact that a gun wouldn't help Sam now. He didn't say anything, however; he didn't have the strength.  
"I'll be just across the corridor. Not far - but far enough. Okay?"

"The hell is that supposed to mean?"

Dean was quiet again. Recalculating, rephrasing perhaps, but the damage was done.

" _Dean_."

"No, Sam. Not tonight. Not ever. I'm not going to talk about this."

"Talk about _what?_ "  
Talk about that. Sam knew it. He just needed to hear it. Again, Dean said nothing.  
"Look, Dean - I'm sorry if I did something wrong. I'm sorry if -"

"It's not about you, Sam! For Heaven's sake, it's not always about you!"  
The sharpness was so desperate that it forgot to cut Sam altogether. Still, the younger reconsidered.

"I can't let that slip like it's nothing."

"Let _what_ slip, exactly?"

" _This._ "

Dean swallowed. Then he swallowed again, this time a large amount of beer instead of the plain dryness in his mouth, and he stood up and wavered there just out of Sam's reach for a while until he finally sighed and shrugged.  
"There's nothing to talk about. I don't want to do this anymore, Sam, I can't. I'm sorry. You need to hold your crap together from now on and you've got to do it without me. It's for the best, believe me."

"Dean -"

" _Trust_ me, Sam."

There it was, the magic word. Sam swallowed. He'd lost. Oddly enough, his whole body ached again but not from the fever. He wanted to spit something back at Dean but he couldn't find anything to say - what'd he demand, exactly? That they keep sharing the bed? Why? Why the hell would he demand that? Because he was scared? Dean was right - he was too old for that. In the end he simply shrugged, bitter.

"Right."

The fight in him faded into exhaustion and he aimed a look away from Dean into the continued blizzard of dull grey, but to his surprise, Dean's hand landed over his and picked it up.

"C'mon, Sam. Let's go back to sleep."

Posture bent and tired, Sam allowed Dean to pull him up. They walked through the corridor like that, Dean slightly in the lead and Sam clinging to his hand, both sets of steps heavy with the unspoken things between them. It didn't take long until Dean stopped and pulled Sam ahead of him, guiding him through a doorway and finally blocking the way out.  
"Just across the corridor, Sammy, I promise. Just let me know if you need me."

_I need you_ , the younger wanted to say but nodded instead. He couldn't bring himself to say good night even though he already felt like he was throwing a pointless tantrum, unable to rid himself of the feeling that he'd been wronged, abandoned - betrayed, almost. Those feelings cancelled any remorse he could have mustered up for his immaturity, and soon enough Dean was left on the other side of the door with no further words exchanged between them. His steps faded like the sounds of the being in the vents in Sam's dream that he could now only remember vaguely. He turned, found his way across the room to the bed and collapsed there, wondering if the lights were on - it bothered him even as he curled underneath two blankets. Dean had left his blanket here, and as Sam adjusted, his hand landed over the older's pillow; he knew well enough that the man wouldn't be coming back for them, but he hoped he had something in his room to make up for the loss. With those thoughts still lingering in his mind he fell asleep again, and his sleep was uneasy but dreamless.

 

 

The wound was still red and the swollen skin around it had a sickly gleam to it when Dean undid the bandages. It didn't bode well, but at least the blueish-violet tint was less stark than it had been the day before. Sam sat there expressionless, sipping at his coffee like he didn't feel the sting as Dean cleaned the wound and covered it up again. They weren't talking, as the night was still weighting them both down, but every now and then one of them yawned and then the other caught it, and those quiet breaths counted time as reliably as the clock on the bedside table. Dean kept glancing at it as if expecting the hour to jump forwards, but it was always the same time, ticking forwards so sluggishly that sometimes the older brother wondered if it was moving at all.

Sam bit into his toast with eggs looking like he hadn't so much as heard of an appetite, much less felt it, in his whole life. Dean was doing even worse: he hadn't touched his breakfast at all. He felt nauseous and uncomfortable in his skin, but in retrospect, his night's freakout had been stupid and he already regretted making such a big number out of it. He'd been asleep, for Heaven's sake; he hadn't done _anything,_ and from what had really happened, Sam likely held no recollection of whatsoever. In his eyes, the whole situation had to look even stranger than it now seemed to Dean, and it was no wonder if he felt bitter about the things Dean had said to him - or for the fact that the older had made him run around blind in the middle of the night, that Dean had worried him like that for no reason whatsoever. But in the morning hours it had seemed so significant and unbearably scary that even now he knew there hadn't been a real alternative. That didn't shift the regret he felt, but at least it didn't bite as deep as long as he could remind himself that what he'd done had been for the best of them both.

"How are you feeling?" he asked in a dead voice, then cleared his throat as if to undo the tone.

Sam tilted his head slowly and sipped more coffee.  
"Sick," he said then with a small shrug, "probably from the antibiotics."

Dean nodded. He tied up the end of the bandage with two bits of tape and brought Sam's shirt back down to cover the sleep-warm flesh on him. He had no fever now: at least that was a good sign.

"Do you want to take a walk?" the older asked lightly, as if just offering.  
He smiled tiredly at the other perking up to the words - so much like an eager puppy at the prospect, ready to wear the leash and go out in the open for an adventure.  
"I just thought maybe you want to keep up with your routine. You don't seem that ill today so I bet it could cheer you up."

Sam jogged every morning: he left at the asscrack of dawn to enjoy the sunrise while Dean was often still sleeping or worse, still awake. They had breakfast together an hour later if the older was up - if he wasn't, Dean assumed Sam still skipped the first meal altogether. Sometimes he'd notice an apple missing, or a kettle in the dish with some porridge caught to the sides, but that was rare. More often than not he felt like he was the one making sure the younger remembered to eat at all, and just as often he worried it might be less about forgetfulness than clear intent, but perhaps that was projection or hypersensitivity. He didn't know how to ask, so he never did.

Suddenly there was hesitation in Sam's expression, however. The excitement in him died down to uncertainty, worry; he frowned at his coffee, head hanging.

"What?" Dean asked, grimacing.

Sam shrugged.  
"I don't know," he said then, "I just - going out would - what if it just reminds me...?"

"You need fresh air. It'll do you good, I know, Sam. C'mon. If not for you then for me."

A small smile returned to the younger's lips. He turned his head to Dean's direction, looking past him and Dean's chest ached to the fact, but there was less concern and more determination in him now and it was a change that Dean welcomed wholeheartedly.

"Okay."

The day was warm: sun was shining brightly from a cloudless sky upon the no longer barren view of Kansas around them. Dean guided Sam forwards by small touches, and they walked very slowly to let the younger get accustomed to the uneven ground again. His steps became steadier and more certain slowly but surely, and Dean walked beside him with his eyes mostly on the horizon instead of their immediate surroundings: he only looked every now and then to be sure he wasn't guiding Sam right into a sudden pit or towards a larger than average rock that could cause him to trip. They walked a circle in the sun before Dean saw the first signs of exhaustion in Sam, even though he hid them well - it wasn't so much physical as it was mental, as walking outdoors was much more difficult and required more concentration than movements indoors where the ground was almost guaranteed to be even and safe to travel. Here the smallest of changes upon the track they were moving along were potential traps for Sam: he couldn't see them and he could only step on them very carefully, and it was exhausting to always be alert when he had nothing but Dean's not always too keen eyes and the soles of his boots to gauge his surroundings by.

For a while they sat on the grass, and the ground was still cold even though the sun was already high up and had been for a while. It couldn't quite reach that far down yet - not the way it was meant to - and for that while they were quiet, but slowly in the silence Dean grew more aware of what he was seeing and what Sam _wasn't_ , and a strange thought entered his mind.

"There are some blue flowers by the ditch," he said uncertainly.

"Hm?"

"Six in a bunch; a couple haven't bloomed yet, though. The grass is growing pretty tall already, it's a lot greener than a week ago too. Summer's almost here, you can probably smell it."  
Wind drew away the silence that followed Dean's words, but he wasn't discouraged by the lack of response.  
"There's no cloud in the sky. Just deep blue, and a plane; you can hear it, right?"

"Wonder where it's going."

"I don't know. Didn't you have an app for that?"

Sam smirked, nodding.  
"Yeah. I do. I left my phone back in the bunker, though, so we'll never know."

"Geek."  
Dean lowered his gaze from the plane's metallic shape back towards the trees.  
"I can spot a sparrow from here, and there's a bigger bird crossing maybe a few hundred feet from here - can't make out what it is - towards the road. There's someone walking their dog out there, don't know if it's a man or a woman, though. Red jacket, guess it could be a woman."

"What colour is the dog?"

"Brown or black. Told you, it's hard to say. Medium size, perky ears, tail curved up - probably with a white tip, like a fox."

Sam smiled. He lowered his head and brushed his fingers into the green grass.  
"Thanks."

"You're welcome."

The younger's steps were a little lighter when they turned back home, barely half a mile away even though the walk had taken them a full hour.

 

 

Perhaps he'd chosen to step away for night time, but Dean was seemingly set on going nowhere for the daylight hours. He was stuck beside Sam even more tightly than he'd been before, and perhaps it was an apology of sorts - a wordless expression that he'd be there no matter what to his best ability, which Sam already knew by heart - but regardless of the intent behind it, it was easy to lean back to. Sam was surprised to find out how well they got along despite this: they bickered, of course, but it mostly remained light and playful after the morning walk.  
They spent two hours doing alphabet practice, and for the first time Sam got a feeling that he might be starting to get it - he could make apart some vocals even inside words, and while that wasn't much, it was the first step of progress that would eventually lead to full understanding of the writing. It made him even happier than finding out that his feet did indeed carry him out the door still, and even though trying had been frightening, he was glad that Dean had suggested it.

A few times during the day he tried to bring up the previous night, but he didn't know exactly how and as such, Dean always avoided him as if not even realising what he was trying to start a conversation on: Sam knew he knew it perfectly well, but catching him from the lie was hard when he couldn't address it head on.  
Around three in the afternoon he curled up for a nap to fight the rising fever with a proper meal filling his belly - two hours later he woke up to an intense wave of nausea that landed him on his knees on the bathroom floor, fingers tracing out the shape of the toilet's seat as a last resort when he didn't know where to aim. The thought of what his hands were touching was the last straw that finally made him throw up: he doubled over the toilet and retched until there was nothing inside him anymore. His whole body was trembling and the wound burned from the movements and the pose he'd taken; in the corridor behind the closed door Dean was wandering about, and as Sam was still gasping for air he heard the older enter his own bedroom and no further sound carried up to his ears.

The bathroom smelled heavily of stomach acids and a sickening mixture of everything he'd eaten and drank during the day, but he took a shower regardless to feel better; afterwards, with nothing but a towel wrapped around his hips in fear that he'd stained his clothing too, he wandered back in the corridor to call his brother's name. It didn't take long for Dean's door to open.

"When did you wake up?" the older asked, his voice baffled.

"I don't know," Sam replied truthfully, feeling uncomfortable standing there not knowing where anything was - even the bathroom door was somewhere hidden behind him, and he wouldn't have found it if he'd tried.  
He'd lost count of his steps and there were doors on both sides: based on the distance from which he'd heard Dean's voice, he might have been a door or two away from his own bedroom.  
"I felt sick."

"And took a shower?"

"After being sick."

"Oh."

Sam grimaced. He moved his arm away from his side and nodded towards the wound.  
"I guess I need help covering it up again."

"Yeah. It looks better. The antibiotics are working, which is good."

"Well, they won't be for long if I keep throwing up after taking them."

"Let's worry about that if it gets worse."

"Mm."

The firmness of Dean's hands when he bandaged over the wound for what had to be the fifthieth time by then was akin to meditation; it made Sam relax into the familiarity of it, the sheer comfort he felt with the support the cloth provided over the vulnerable area.

"How about another movie?" Dean asked him, something between his lips so that every syllable was muffled.

"Sure. Hey... Dean."

"Yeah? What d'you wanna watch?"

He was getting good at avoiding it, as if sensing what Sam was about to say. The younger smiled crookedly, shrugging as Dean pushed his fingers into his flesh as he straightened out the tapes to catch the bandage properly.  
"We watched crime last and it was a bit tricky to follow. Horror?"

"Serious?" Dean huffed.

"Serious. It has pretty clear cues and time for you to explain what's happening." 

"Sure, if that's what you want to do. I'm in."

"Yeah. But Dean - seriously -"

"Sam, I don't want to talk about it. Can't you take a hint?"

Sam swallowed.  
"I know. I - I have."

"Then why do you keep pressing?"

"Because maybe _I_ want to talk about it."  
Did he? Sam wasn't sure, but now it was out there regardless, and Dean's hands retreated from him, one leaning into the bed beside Sam and the other presumably landing upon the man's lap. Dean breathed out carefully but Sam could hear the shiver in it and the discomfort in him was almost thick enough for Sam to feel it.

"What's there to talk about?"

"Why'd you run off to begin with?"

The silence following the question was comforting: it meant that Dean was seriously considering an honest response, and that was all Sam could have asked for. Finally, the older sighed.  
"I don't know."

So he couldn't say it. Sam didn't doubt for a moment that he knew, but some things were harder to voice than others; this time, he let it slip. Maybe later Dean would be able to phrase it, and now he knew just how much Sam wanted him to. Sam didn't hold up much hope for it, however - more likely than that Dean would open up to him was that he'd never muster enough courage for it, and there was nothing Sam could do about it. There was something in the memory that kept bugging Sam; he was familiar with his brother's reaction, but not to the extent that it had happened the night before. He'd had it a few times before - the sudden pullback from a hug, a change in response to a conversation that had wandered a bit too close for comfort. There were things neither of them wanted to talk about, but right now, Sam wished they could have, if only to chase off the guilty undertone from his own mind that told him that somehow without realising it he'd done something wrong, something that he couldn't take back anymore. Something that had chased Dean away, hurt him, _somehow_ \- the only thing he wanted to know was what it had been, and if there was any way for him to fix it.

"A new horror movie or an old horror movie?"

"Check Netflix, tell me what's on there."

"Right. Media room?"

"Yeah."

 

 

The media room was a bedroom turned something else: it had their large TV set, a couch and a low table in it. The walls carried the speakers, each hung as conveniently as possible for the best auditory experience whether the audio be that from a movie or music or a recording they were playing for work. It was where they spent the long nights on snow days when nothing much was going on, marathoning movies or the occasional TV show, sometimes alone and sometimes with friends, but most often together, sharing a bowl of popcorn that today was absent. Beer made up for it: Dean laid the pack beside the table and two bottles from it on the table, then searched for Netflix from the TV's menu only to find out the wifi was cut off again. It wasn't by far the first time - signal throughout the bunker was a pain in the ass on a good day and completely absent on a bad one. While Dean tried to search for a connection through the menu options Sam was slowly sinking back in the couch, throat exposed and chin pointing almost directly towards the ceiling, and from underneath his thin light grey shirt the shape of the bandages could be seen around his waist. Dean watched him while he waited for the automated search to reveal the bunker's connection, remote still hanging loosely in one hand, and he wondered how badly he'd freaked the other out earlier: the questions Sam had shot at him spoke of more damage done than he'd wanted, but there wasn't a way to take it back now. He'd considered speaking, if only lightly - there weren't words for the things that haunted him, and therefore no way of calling any of them out loud even if he would have wanted to. Not that he did, not now or ever. He'd buried those memories deep and even more than before last night, he was now set on keeping them six feet under.

Finally the search brought up an open access point and Dean sighed with relief, returning across the room to set up the movie for them. It took them ten minutes to find out a ridiculous-enough sounding movie from the list; the lights were off for Dean's sake, but he couldn't help but wonder what the environment seemed like to his brother who sat there unseeing, surrounded by nothing but the audio and the comfort of the couch. Above him opened the unknown: Dean noticed him taking mark of how far the table was with his foot before he so much as tried to find his beer from on top of it. He was adjusting quickly and in surprising ways, and today Dean had had more than one occasion during which he'd entirely forgotten the fact that Sam couldn't see a damn thing. Some of his movements had regained the refined tone of someone who knew exactly what he was doing, but some...

"Watch it," the older grunted in a low voice as he reached to grab the younger's bottle before it tilted too far when Sam hadn't quite grabbed it but instead knocked it with his knuckles.

Sam grimaced, trying again: this time his fingers wound firmly around the bottle's shape and he brought it to his mouth with ease.  
"Thanks."

Looking at him in this condition seemed wrong and Dean couldn't help feeling guilty for doing it as if without the other's consent, but the truth was that there was a certain relief in being able to view him while he didn't know he was being watched. Even as Dean explained briefly what was now happening on the screen, his eyes were more keen of the younger's shape than the movie he was narrating. The infection was still rendering Sam pale and the lack of exercise had somehow already turned him softer than before, but all of that seemed to go together with the kind of dependency he'd accepted between them: he seemed younger now than he'd been a couple days ago, a little bit closer to the kid that Dean still saw in him even when he was anything but. The years seemed to shed from him here, and perhaps it was the exposed vulnerability which was glaringly obvious to the older now, but something about it made the whole situation fragile - fragile in that precise manner that had called on the fear in Dean. He could have reached across the space now and touched Sam and the other wouldn't have complained, pulled away or otherwise declined it, and just knowing this made the older's heart race. A part of him wanted to, had wanted it ever since he'd forbidden himself from doing it, ever since they'd made that wordless promise to keep their distance, but another was terrified of it and more than anything of slipping further down that path. But was that really something he needed to fear?  
They weren't kids anymore. Things had changed. And Dean didn't trust himself, not in the least, but his reasons had been good a decade ago. Much had changed since, _he_ had changed since. Wasn't his fear in itself enough proof that he was different now? Could he trust that, trust what he felt and that the things he wanted could be kept separate from what he didn't want, even in the light of what giving in had led to in the past?

He forced his eyes back to the TV, to the family settling in their new house, a building as old and creaky as any and most certainly haunted, completely ignoring the fact that no one sane would have missed the fact and still paid money to settle in. In these movies the family was always moving; every flick seemed to start with this same concept. A new old house - a new old haunting.  
Dean breathed out the tension in his body and pointed out the obvious foreshadowing out loud; the corner of Sam's mouth twitched into an ironic smile, then back down again. He looked convincingly like he was watching and Dean could have forgotten that he wasn't.

They'd been kids back then - back when things had started changing between them. And maybe they'd been born that way, literally, to be joined by the hip, cursed from the first breaths, by their bloodline alone. Maybe it was by design like everything else had been in their past, just a part of the necessary suffering that'd prepare them for the destinies. He'd thought of it before and he was certain Sam had, too; that perhaps it had all been out of their hands, and the guilt was just a side-effect of circumstances they'd ultimately played little part in. But that was wishful thinking, the kind that didn't help the blame that Dean held onto like his existence depended on it - even the fact that he'd been much too young to understand what was going on, and much less what it would lead to, before it was already too late didn't matter too much. He'd done it, and escaping the responsibility for his actions wasn't an option. Excuses were excuses, even for a boy of nine who'd just been curious: he hadn't thought of being brothers when he'd pinned Sam against the wall, chubby fingers over the little boy's wrists, lips over his, teeth against his and heat over his cheekbones. They'd separated quickly, Sam had wiped his lips and looked disgusted, and Dean had grinned and wiped his whole face, then stuck his tongue out. And maybe it was innocent, acting out something he'd seen on TV for a million times with the only person he trusted enough to even consider it. Maybe it didn't matter since Sam had been curious, too; he'd been the one who'd taken Dean's hand the day after and asked if they could do it properly, 'without the teeth'. That wasn't unforgivable - it was embarrassing, but they'd been kids. If only it had stopped there, if only their curiosity, naivety and plain stupidity had stopped there, but all of those resources had been infinite for kids with no one's eye upon them, and John hadn't been there to tell them no. John had been in the other room, John had been _somewhere_ , John had dropped them at Bobby's in that house with three floors and a vast open playground for a yard, and nobody had ever caught them, not even when the curiosity turned from innocent to something that would have required a firm guiding hand to stop it before it transformed and twisted into a whole another creature. Nobody expected that from kids that young, from _brothers_ of all things, and no one could have thought that when the lights were off or when they disappeared to play in the woods, it wasn't hide and seek, it was touch me and I'll touch you in turn, something that they both knew was to be hidden and which they hid to their best ability - too well, in retrospect, even though a child could never keep something like that completely hidden.

Dean didn't remember taking control of it, even though at some point as the older one he'd had to do just that. It had never been command and conquer for him or for Sam for that matter; it had been mutual, something that Dean had always thought they were both in on, and something that they both had pursued in their own ways. The intimacy turned erotic as they grew older, the curiosity towards the other's body more demanding and in depth from the superficial interest it had taken shape as at first. By the time Sam was ten, they'd both had an orgasm, and the first ones hadn't been by either's own hand but rather by the other's touches - Dean didn't remember his, but he remembered Sam's, the first realisation that what he was doing wasn't right. He remembered the excitement that was almost as if inseparable from the guilt that he felt, and the addiction to the thrill he developed inbetween the breaths that he drew too hastily and let out too heavy.  
It followed an uncomfortable logic: they were never apart. There was no privacy for either, and since there was little to remind them that they were two separate entities, it seemed natural to explore together instead. Even considering the age at which they'd turned the games into something else, they'd held back for quite a while, and it was reasonable to assume that at first, it had all been an accident, something discovered by chance rather than by intent, since neither of them really knew what they'd been doing until an older age. Dean had an inkling much before Sam did, and he'd made a few attempts at explaining it; that it was sex, whatever that meant, and they weren't really doing it, just acting it out, playing, anything as long as it made him feel that they didn't need to quit. Sam didn't seem to care what it was - he was excited about it in the same way he was excited about the few family trips they took, and Dean had reasoned that as long as it lit him up like that, it couldn't be bad.

He remembered the younger's body suddenly losing its plumpness, the childish round features - he recalled the wonder at how Sam suddenly gained muscle in his stomach, how his hips in a matter of weeks turned to look like they were carved of marble but how he was still hairless and how goddamn beautiful he'd been that way to Dean's eye. Ironically around that time he'd already known how to close out the details, especially the younger's sex; for a time, he'd been an expert at playing pretend that his brother was a girl, any girl as the details hardly mattered, and at times he'd been upset at how the changes in his body had turned him so much harder to read in that manner. Dean's own imagination had lost its power by the time Sam came to him solely to get off; they'd stopped kissing when Dean was fifteen, and by the time he was eighteen they'd stopped looking one another in the eye whenever their touches turned for the tracks that they needed to keep hidden. The older they got, the more of their time alone was spent that way, and for a lot of it they hardly needed to hide anymore. John was never there, he was always out hunting for weeks at a time, leaving Dean to care for them both and for everything else back at what he liked to call the base, and sometimes there wasn't a day in a week when they didn't have sex.  
By the time Sam turned fifteen, there wasn't a need to call it anything else. They both knew exactly what they were doing and why it had to be kept hidden, but it was a habit, an addiction that neither knew how to quit. Sometimes they tried - like most of their decisions, these struggles were quiet and there were never words to mark the end of what they refused to call by any name. They weren't lovers, they'd never been lovers; they'd always been brothers, but they'd always also been something else as if they both lived a constant, twisted double life that they'd never chosen, never walked into, and which seemed as if it had always just been there, been _in_ them for as long as they could recall.

That had been a highway to hell like few other things in their lives - it was safe to say they'd both seen the fire long before it had started burning. And when it had, Dean had thought it'd kill him; losing Sam the first time was the most painful thing he'd ever been through, the thing that had taught him what pain felt like, and to be taught pain in that way when his whole life he'd thought they'd been well acquainted had shattered something in him that he had never really known how to heal from again. But it had led them here, and in comparison, even through the denial of all of that shadowing every step of the way, it had been a smooth ride ever since they'd reunited; it was like breathing fresh air for the first time to experience what else their relationship could be like, no matter how hard it at times had been to uphold. Never, however, had it felt this difficult, and now when Dean turned back towards the TV for what he hoped was the last time for the hour, he wondered if it was a test of who they'd grown to be - a test to measure if any of this had ever been real.

For what it was worth, he'd fight for that. It took him a moment to gather the courage, but once it was done he reached across the space between them, undid Sam's right hand from around the bottle of beer and held it firmly until he was certain he'd been right and doing so hadn't broken anything. Hell, the man was blind: there was a reason he was open to touch, and it had nothing to do with the nightmares lurking inside Dean's skull. He needed reassurance of presence, the comfort offered by the firm knowledge of not being alone solely because in his world right now, he _was_ alone, and he needed Dean because Dean was the only one there for him.  
Dean had changed enough to stand up to the test; he wasn't that boy anymore, and neither was Sam, not even at his weakest. If there was something that Dean owed him, it was to at least prove that he was strong enough to be there for him now - and if it would be the last thing he did, he'd stand up to that challenge.


	7. Apollo

Sam's heart raced. His posture shifted, perked, straightened entirely: his brows turned to a slight frown, whole mind concentrating on his lacking vision, the _flash_ that he'd perceived in it. He was afraid to breathe, but when he did, it came with a nudge of Dean's hand still joined with his as it had been for most of the movie - he was grateful for it, even though becoming used to feeling it there had distracted him from the plot that he could barely follow for a good long while.

"Dean?"

"Yeah? She's in the basement, the light just went off."

"So it's - it's a dark scene."

"Yeah. And if I'm right, and you know that I am, she's going to get jumped... right... about... now."

A banshee scream filled the room for a moment. Sam let out a hoarse laughter; without Dean's prediction, the sound could have made him jump even in the midst of the sudden hope that was clutching him like an iron grip around his chest.  
Now... now it was a light scene.

"The scene changed."

"Yeah. Well, no, it cut to daddy in the kitchen."

"It's light."

"Ye-... what? How'd you know that?"

Sam shivered.  
"Because I saw it change."

"You what?"

Dean was looking at him; Sam didn't need a flickering light to tell him that. He could _feel_ it.  
"Crap. Pause it, Dean. Please."

It took only a second for the sound to cut.

"Can you change the channel?"

"Sure."

The lighting changed. The shade that reigned over the inexistence of Sam's world turned from dark grey to lighter grey, then to dark grey again.  
"It's moving."

"Yeah, it is. Hey, slow down, okay? Tell me what's going on. You're seeing this?"

"Not - exactly _seeing_ it. But I think - I think I can tell if it's light or dark."

"Wait."

Dean's hand slipped out of Sam's and his steps moved across the room: Sam knew to expect his world to light up by a lot even before he heard the click of the light switch. He laughed - he couldn't hold it back.  
"Light."

The lights went off again.

"Dark."

The lights went on, this time without the click of the switch.  
"Light."

Silent switch to dark.  
"Dark. Light. Dark. Dean, you'll break the damn thing."

"Incredible," Dean replied, ignoring him.  
Light again.  
Light until Sam told Dean that it was light, and then...

"Dark. Come on, let's finish the damn movie."  
There was still laughter in Sam's voice, and the relief was rushing into his skull with such a force that it was making him dizzy. When Dean passed him, he received a light pat on the head for his recovery: the older's fingers twirled his hair around them and then released it again, most of the misplaced hair ending up over the younger's forehead and eyes. He blew it off and the channel changed again, reintroducing the room and Sam's vision to a still, unmoving shade of grey.

"Anything else? Like, can you see shapes?"

Sam felt the older move his hand up and down in front of him, clutched it and brought it back on the couch.  
"No. I can't. But I can _feel_ that, so stop doing it."

Dean chuckled softly, contently, and Sam realised it was the first time he could hear relief in his tone. He'd been strained and in an endless state of discomfort ever since Sam had been injured, and now that it was gone, as momentarily as it might have been, the younger couldn't help the rush of guilt that followed the happiness that at first had filled him at the realisation. He tuned back into the movie, trying to undo that reaction: he was doing everything he could. Still, the sooner his sight would improve, the better; it simply couldn't come too late.  
The movie was playing again.

"You know, I was expecting it to be like - flipping a switch," Dean stated after a moment - he'd clearly forgotten to keep Sam updated on the plot, but Sam didn't mind.

"My sight?"

"Yeah. Stupid, I know, but I guess - I just expected you'd wake up one day and it'd be over."

"It makes sense that it'd be gradual, though."

"It does. I just didn't... think."

Sam huffed warmly.  
"I guess I didn't either," he admitted; the truth was that he'd expected the same.  
For certain he hadn't expected this - even now he could make up the changes in lighting, although they were more subtle than the light going on and off in the room. The more he concentrated upon it, the clearer it became and the more he felt he could sense the difference, and it made him feel more at ease, more confident and less concerned about what was waiting for him. It seemed as if a promise had come true, confirming that this wasn't forever, and if there had been one thing he'd needed to know, that had been it.

The soundtrack paused to Dean's embarrassed chuckle.  
"Oh, right. The movie. Uh, let me recap for you."

 

 

It was becoming natural to sit there by the younger's bed every night taking care of his injury; doing what Sam could have in any other situation done on his own but now couldn't. Dean's hands seemed to have formed a routine with the way he cleaned and tied up the wound which no longer looked swollen, even though the irritation was still visible as stark redness around it. Sam's eyes stared at the corner of the ceiling in a glassy manner, as if he'd spaced out and perhaps he had: perhaps that was the way he coped with the pain that was inevitably still there, and if it was, Dean didn't blame him for it in the least. He patted him on the back when the tapes finally held the bandage together again and the younger lowered his gaze, smiling slightly in the tired way that Dean was very familiar with. He hesitated on getting up: his blanket and pillow were still here, right next to Sam's. Could he stay? Did he want to?

"You good, Sammy?"

"Yeah. Thanks. Dean..."

"Yeah?"

"I'm gonna pay you back, somehow."

"For what?" Dean huffed in return, grimacing.  
"For helping you out? Man, I'd be a complete asshole if I didn't. You don't owe me anything, not for this."

Sam shook his head slowly. He faced his knees and seemed lost in thought for a moment again, and Dean would have paid to know what he was thinking, but in the end he said nothing at all, merely turned towards Dean and smiled again.  
"Take your stuff when you go," he said, "or you'll catch a cold."

"Yeah."  
Dean was still on the verge of staying. Yes, he wanted to. There wasn't a specific reason, not even though he suspected it had a lot to do with knowing that Sam hated the thought of being left alone. But overall, he just wanted to feel close to someone, anyone, as being alone with his thoughts didn't sound inviting at all and he feared that if he'd risk it and lock himself across the corridor, he'd invite back the black hole that had been slowly sucking him in for the whole day: he wasn't ready to battle it again, and any alternative was a welcome one if only it stood a chance at sparing him from it. He was halfway up from the bed, already reaching for the blanket, when he realised there was no reason for him to go, at least none that would stand up against the reasons to stay.  
"Hey, Sam... you know, if I - if I wanted to stay, you know, to make sure - even though I said a lot last night - would that be alright?"

The taller lifted his head and blew off some stray hair from his face before a smile reached his lips. He seemed relieved and Dean responded to the smile, feeling calmer already as the tension lifted from him even before the other nodded.  
"Yeah, sure. Less hauling crap across the corridor."

"True. I guess I just sleep better knowing you're not tripping over anything."

"Oh, c'mon."

"Seriously. You've got way too much leg for your own good."

"Right, whatever. So, what, you gonna catch me if I sleepwalk and fall over?"

Dean grimaced.  
"Something like that."

The younger let out a small chuckle and shrugged. Then he reached for his shirt and pulled it back on - it took him a second to make sure it was the right way around, but at the end he seemed satisfied with his achievement and with that he fell back on the bed, colliding softly with the mattress underneath.  
"Dean - have I ever sleepwalked?"

"I think so."

"I don't remember."

"I don't, either."

Sam smiled, eyes closed and hands over his bandaged stomach.  
"I guess not, then."

"No, I'm pretty sure you have. Like when you were a kid. I just can't remember when or how it happened."

"Mm. I can't remember _you_ sleepwalking."

"That's because I haven't."

"Yeah. So the chances of me falling in my sleep are slightly bigger than yours."

"Which is why I'm sticking around in case I need to catch you."

"Okay."

Dean closed his eyes and fell back next to Sam; when he opened his eyes, the ceiling greeted him nonchalantly by remaining right and exactly where he'd expected it to be. He was tired, and in that tiredness a strange desire was brewing up: he tasted the words upon his tongue and swallowed them down once, then, as if still driven by them, he turned to look at his brother beside him. Sam turned towards him the same in response to hearing and likely feeling him watch him from the side, and Dean's gaze traced the golden rings surrounding his pupils for a bit, mind empty of thought even though he could still feel the buzzing right underneath the calm surface.  
"You asked me a hundred times today what happened last night. Do you still - you still wanna know?" he heard himself begin.

Sam turned his eyes towards his lips and then back up approximately where his eyes were; for a moment he stared there, but then, as if giving up, he closed his eyes and nodded. Dean looked for surprise or any other reaction from his features, but if Sam had felt anything at the words, he wasn't letting it show.  
"Yeah. I do."

How could he put it without bringing up anything he didn't want to bring up? How could he dance around the subject, rise enough suspicion to let Sam know what the freakout had been all about but not so much as to drag the topic up for real? Dean shuddered, allowing his eyes to close too as if to hide, to remove himself from the situation. As if it could offer him safety - how easy it had to be for Sam to talk now when he was constantly sheltered from the reactions that followed his words, as if permanently locked inside a dark room with no one in there but them. Dean cleared his throat and joined his fingers together, hands over his stomach now in a mirror image of Sam beside him.  
"I don't want to screw you over."

"And you think that you will?"  
Sam's voice was almost casual, and the light tone made Dean uncomfortably aware of the likelihood that he'd immediately caught up with what he was really talking about.  
"Why?"

"Because - it's kind of like - I'm caring for you again, right? Because I've got to, and that's fine. Last night, I just worried that maybe - maybe I'm taking too much control here. You know how bad I'm with that, how easily I just... lose track of what's good for you and what isn't, what's good for me, I don't know. The whole mile. Like I just lose it and then I can't tell the difference anymore. Like... like happened with Gadreel. I mean, I'm not about to - I'd like to think I've learned something, but it's just... that maybe I haven't. And I don't know if I haven't, not before I screw up again, and I kind of... I guess I just realised it last night. That maybe I'm too comfortable with my role here, thinking I'm being a big brother for you but that I'm really being something else and maybe that's not good for us."

"Dean, you're being a brother. That's all."

"You think so?"

"Yeah. You're not - you're not being controlling. You're trying to do your best. You're not stepping over any boundaries and I don't feel like you're doing anything wrong. Maybe you've been with me more than - than what I expected and maybe that's been more than you should have been, I mean, even like this I can and I still need to stand on my own, but... really, I don't - I don't think you need to worry about that yet. I think we're good, man."

Dean had opened his eyes again. He turned back to face the ceiling and Sam did the same as if to mirror him, but Dean wasn't sure if it was a conscious thing or something that just happened. His heart fluttered with relief, as if the words had shaken most of the burden off of his shoulders - the concern wasn't completely gone but it was easier to bear, especially now that he could be certain that Sam would watch out for him too, and that he knew that whatever it was that Dean meant, Dean didn't want it to happen. If anything at all would happen regardless, Sam would at least know that it wasn't because of a want but because of something else, and maybe he'd be strong enough to prevent it altogether. Dean would try for certain: he was watching himself like a hawk, even though for the time being there didn't seem to be much of a battle going on with them in the first place. He felt content here in this way, and even the proximity - the warmth radiating from another body so close to his - was only calming and nothing more.

"Right," he finally said, climbing up from the bed, "I'd tuck in for the night if you weren't sprawled all over my side of the bed, too."

Sam let out a huff before slowly getting up after Dean, who couldn't help but notice the careful manner he moved to avoid irritating the wound further. When he was up, the older climbed back on the bed and settled on his side, kicking aside the blanket and fluffing up his pillow. His head hit it with a soft sound and he watched Sam follow the example again, and once they were both comfortably settled, he found himself quite ready to just fall asleep: tiredness washed over him suddenly with a wide, long yawn, and he gave into it without hesitation.  
"One last thing before I'm calling it a day," he muttered, "if you vomit on me, I'm going to skin you. Just throwing that out there now in case you were wondering."

"I feel pretty good," Sam said and his voice communicated the grimace on him well enough that Dean didn't even have to look to know it was there, "thanks for asking."

 

 

"Hey, princess. Time to drag your pretty butt out of the bed. I'm not bringing your breakfast in today, don't even think about it."

Sam grunted. He curled up tighter, feeling cold underneath the blanket: it wasn't anything new, the bunker got cold during the night hours despite the heating system, and the fact that his feet were often dangling out of the bed effectively letting in the cold air to his sleep-sensitive skin not all too rarely led to him waking up to shivers running down his spine. Tonight had been different in that - he'd woken up, yes, but not to cold. He'd made a nest for himself in the middle of the bed, Dean's arm loosely over his waist and the older's body beside him so close that _cold_ was the last element to bother Sam. Accepting it had been easy, and in his half-waking state Sam hadn't thought to question it for a moment: it had seemed natural, so he'd taken it as such.  
Now he missed feeling that proximity, as instead of it he had the chill that still lingered in the room which he could only chase away with what Dean was proposing - a proper breakfast with hot coffee as the main course. He tried to get up but fell back in with a thud, and he didn't need his eyes to know that Dean's expression grew from carefree to concerned in less than a fraction of a second. Before he could even think to protest, the older's weight landed on the bed and his hand was already brushing over Sam's forehead by the time the younger unceremoniously whacked it off.  
"Hands off me," he grimaced, tone playfully irritated, "I'm fine."

"Then prove it."  
Relief tinted Dean's voice even though he was carefully trying to cover it over; he stood up again, but lingered beside the bed as Sam attempted crawling up again. There was a certain change in the way Sam took it in. Today, it didn't feel supportive, it felt restricting; even as he stood up and balanced himself over his sleep-stiff legs, he felt like he couldn't breathe with the older's concern hanging over him.

"Happy?" he huffed, trying to hide the discomfort from his voice.

"Definitely. C'mon, the eggs are growing cold."

Dean reached out again, but Sam rejected the guiding hand; the discomfort in him made way for regret as he did so, and as if to communicate a silent thank-you for the offer he brushed his palm over Dean's shoulder as he took the lead in front of him. He couldn't shake the feeling that refusing the older's care had hurt him, but Dean made no note of it and offered Sam no chance to explain, so that was the way they entered the corridor: slowly, and with the blind man leading. Outside the door Dean skipped next to Sam, but he'd taken the hint and made no comment, simply walked onwards with Sam and from his movements and the tracking Sam could do with his own feet and his reached hand he felt confident that navigating to the library would be easier than it had been before. He might finally be getting it, but he couldn't deny that having an idea of the lights in each area was helping quite a bit: he could tell where the doorways were, or when he was too close to a wall simply by the way the light surrounding him changed.

"Doing good, Sam."

"Mm."

The younger's reached hand met the doorway a bit later than he'd expected it - the lack of a firm object where he'd assumed it would be always caused his world to tilt strangely as if the horizon had given in, but he remained in balance and gripped the wooden frame before stepping outside of it.  
"I could use the help now," he admitted quietly, still unsure where the table and the chairs were located exactly - tracking them by light wouldn't do him much good, as they provided little to no shade, and nowhere near enough for his vision to register it.

"Right."

Dean's hand slipped into his, firm and confident, and if the rejection before had affected him, it was now as good as gone. Sam's lips parted to let out a quiet sigh, and prior to it he'd barely noticed he'd held his breath; his concentration on merely moving across his own home had drawn it from him, like breathing was an inconvenience that could easily lead him astray. Now he felt he could relax and give in, and there was no shame in it. It also seemed to grant Dean a sense of purpose and the uneasiness in his aura faded fast as he led Sam to a chair.

"I'm gonna bring in the breakfast, so sit tight and don't get lost."

"Dean, hey..."

"Yeah?"

Dean's steps halted and he turned, weight balancing over the foot settling in last. Somehow, Sam could track his movements like that; he wasn't sure if it was the sound or the way air settled around him, but something told him what was happening around him, and sometimes it felt as if he could feel Dean around him like they were connected. It was a stronger feeling than the strange sensation he had near furniture and structures, as if he could anticipate the other's movements and even tell his expressions and mood based on no visual cues whatsoever. With the rest of the world, he was simply building an internal map that fed off of what his senses could give him. With Dean, it felt almost too precise to be a physical thing.

"Nothing. I'll get to it when you're back, I guess."

"Huh. Alright."

Dean shifted, turned around on his heels - he was barefooted like Sam was - and left the room. Sam faced the way he'd went, one elbow on the table and head resting against his hand. As he waited, a yawn broke through, and he realised that he felt hopeful today, much better than the couple days earlier when his mind had been nearly completely consumed by fever and fears. The fact that he could see _something_ , even if it was as little as subtle changes in the brightness levels of the nothing that surrounded him, was still feeding him with strength to carry on through yet another day of bumping into objects and being unable to take care of himself. He couldn't help but wonder how people ever got used to it, how they learned everything that was necessary to survive on their own: he was blessed to have Dean, as much as it ached in his pride. Not everyone had that kind of loyalty at their back, someone who was willing to put everything aside just to be there for them when they needed it. Sure, it was suffocating at times, but how could he not appreciate that kindness now that he needed it so badly?

The thought made him uneasy. Truth was, perhaps Sam - the Sam from a few days ago, anyway - would have preferred the isolation. There was a needy part within him that feared the very concept, but for a while now he'd stood on his own and he wasn't ready to give up that independence. To be put in a situation where he had little choice in the matter was an injury on its own, something he didn't know how to properly cope with; on one hand, yes, Dean's never-shifting presence in his life was a blessing. On the other hand, he was selfish to think that way, and much more importantly, he wasn't certain if he wanted it at all. Was it ungratefulness or concern, he didn't know. The line was blurred here. He wasn't sure where the line even began, or when they were close to crossing it: when Dean ceased existing on his own and melted in with Sam's wellbeing, and when Sam was enabling it, letting himself be lost in it, and when he was simply giving the other the chance to help him. Was there even a line anymore? He'd wondered that often, and it wasn't a new concern. He remembered first fearing that his very presence was a prison for his brother when he'd barely entered his teens - perhaps he'd worried about it earlier, but for a child it was much easier to accept the care and presence of an older sibling when he was the only thing there to cling onto. John's absence had made them that way, too dependent on one another for everything in their lives, and while it had probably contributed to their survival later, it had certainly contributed to a lot of other things just the same, things that were both unwanted and damaging. It had even sent them to the grave for one another, and yet that same love, or dependency, or whatever it was to be called, was the one thing that had brought them back from it.  
Sam turned towards the table, fingertips sliding across the surface to map the texture, the smallest of changes upon it, the shapes and bumps present in the glass that covered it.

He'd read quite a bit on his own after leaving, read to convince himself that he wasn't alone with his experiences. It was easy when he was studying for a law school: nobody asked him why he was so into researching the topics that his search brought him to. He'd hated picking up some of those studies - hated admitting that what their father had done to them could possibly be filed under child neglect, even though he'd lived through years when he'd felt he'd barely seen the man at all. John was his father and he'd always loved him, fiercely even though their relationship had never quite been the same as the one between the father and the older brother. But when the effects were concerned, it didn't matter that John was protecting them. In not being present, his love lost its meaning in their everyday lives: the weeks he was gone left them vulnerable in ways that the man had never realised, never thought to think of, at least not until it was much too late to start fixing the damage done. He'd been consumed by the monsters outside their home, those that could hurt his boys if he stayed with them more or left them alone for a little longer - he'd balanced it all in his own way, one that had worked out well enough to keep them all alive as long as it had, but which had failed spectacularly in other aspects. Dean was the one who'd taken the worst of it; for most of his life, Sam had always had Dean to depend on, and he hadn't thought to question it because his needs were being fulfilled. Dean's, on the other hand, hadn't been. When he'd been scared, he'd had no one to turn to: John, when present, would hardly be there to comfort him. Sam simply couldn't, though he'd tried - he couldn't count the memories of clinging onto Dean, knowing he was holding back tears and just not understanding why, fearing he couldn't make it better, as if it had been his duty to provide what no one else would, and even more scared that whatever it was that haunted Dean would come after him next. And it didn't help that Dean trusted no one. They barely had people to turn to, and once Bobby fell out of John's favour (as could be expected when a man chases another off his property with a shotgun in hand), there wasn't anyone left to tell Dean that the world wasn't his to carry on his shoulders.

It hurt to think of their father like that, of course it did. But Sam had always hated him and loved him at once, always uncertain which feeling contributed the most until the very last moment. He'd feared the feeling had been mutual but John had loved him, and he'd never hated him - he'd realised this as he'd grown older, learned to look at the full picture instead of the fights they'd had and the toxic words thrown across turned tables and slammed doors. It was the child in him that had feared the worst, blind as he'd been to the weight that his father had carried about him, and he'd only had ears for the bad news in the absence of proof to the contrary. That didn't change the truth, and the truth was that the life John had raised them into had killed more than just the child in them, and for Dean, Sam could never map out the damage done. He _still_ couldn't, not with all the wisdom from his books and psychology. Perhaps Dean was simply too close to him, or perhaps he was willingly blind to the scars the man carried because he looked at him through the eyes of a younger brother, but making apart what was right and what was wrong had always been difficult between them. And maybe that was the way Dean had felt about raising him, too. Sam couldn't know, Dean wouldn't tell.

Now the soft sounds of bare feet upon a cold stone floor returned, shaking Sam out of his thoughts. He felt like he'd grown heavier by a few whole winter-cold stones in the span of the minutes Dean had spent in the kitchen, but the relief his return brought was almost like being able to breathe after nearly drowning: Sam found himself smiling, head perked and unseeing eyes lit with nothing but the happiness he felt at being redeemed from the pit he'd fallen into during that short time.

"Wow, someone's happy to see me. Or about breakfast. Is that the same thing?"

A plate was brought against Sam's elbow and he pulled his arm off the table, running his hand around the plate to find the fork. There wasn't one: instead, he found toast.  
"Thanks, Dean."

"Don't get used to it. You're on breakfast duty the next six weeks once we're done with - you know."

"Yeah. Seems fair."

"Huh."

"Yeah."

"You were about to say something before I left?"  
Dean sipped his coffee and Sam could feel his gaze upon him. The younger nodded.

"How are you feeling?" he heard himself ask instead of speaking out any requests.

"What? Me? I'm fantastic."

"No, seriously. Aren't you tired? Tired in general or tired of me."

"No - Sam - what the hell are you talking about?"

Sam rolled his eyes, half-hoping Dean wouldn't catch it.  
"You've stuck to me like glue for the past week. Don't you feel - I don't know - don't you need your own time?"

To his surprise, Dean considered it. By the sound of it, the thought hadn't even occurred to him.  
"I don't know what you're talking about," he finally said and Sam heard him shrug for emphasis.

That was the last thing the younger wanted to hear.  
"Seriously?"

"Yeah, seriously. What, you want to get rid of me?"

A part of Sam wanted to throttle the older. Another just wanted to hug him tight. A whole hundred percent of him was getting anxious from the conversation, so instead of answering he bit into his toast and stayed quiet for a moment.  
"That's not it at all," he finally said.

"Well, you're not being very convincing about it. Seriously, man, just tell me if me trying to care for you is getting on your nerves, I mean, sheesh, I'm sorry."

"Shut up, Dean. Stop putting words in my mouth. That's not what I'm saying."  
Sam swallowed back the irritation. If there ever was a time to hold back on it, now was it.  
"I just wanted to make a request, kind of."

"Hm? Shoot."

"Today," Sam sighed, rubbing a hand over his face and leaving grease stains over his already greasy-feeling forehead, "you decide what we do. Drag me along or don't drag me along, it doesn't matter. I've taken up every second of the past week and I don't want that, honestly, I don't."

"Whoa, Apollo has landed back on Earth."

"See? That's what I mean. You're done with me."  
The silence seemed shocked, albeit agreeing. Sam sighed.  
"I'm done with me, too. The whole me, me, me, me of this week. I'm done being the centre of attention, done with everything being about me and my condition. So let's change focus. That's all I'm asking. I'm sorry, Dean."

"Don't worry. I... I didn't mean for that to sound so bad. Truth is, it's kind of exhausting. I just - I don't - I want to do something _with_ you, but I'm not sure what we can do - I can't exactly drag you to a baseball game like this, can I?"

"That's a start, I guess. If you want to, really, I..."  
Maybe a baseball game wouldn't be a good idea.  
"You brought me the Harry Potter, right? So maybe - maybe you should pick something that you've wanted to do for a long while but never got around to."

"I don't know, man. Maybe we should just wait it out."

"My blindness?"

"Yeah."

The manner in which Dean bit into his toast in the moment following the sentence sounded almost bitter in Sam's ears. It seemed that the longer he was reduced to four senses only, the better he was getting at making up clues from things that often made little sense in the logical mind, ranging from measuring the tiredness of his brother from the way he shrugged to drawing conclusions from the aggression Sam imagined he could perceive in the way he chewed his food. Anything to give him a better understanding of the situation at hand, to make up for the fact that he'd lost his most important means of relating in conversation.

When the other seemed to be set on his final word, Sam cleared his throat and prodded him again.  
"Look, man, it could be two days or it could be twenty - or it could be never. I'm going to be sick if we keep this up and I don't mean from any infection."

"Speaking of, you need to take your pill, Sam. It's on the plate."

"Uh."  
The conversation cut off for the time it took for Sam to down the antibiotic; it got stuck in his throat and he downed it with a long, too hot gulp from his coffee.  
"You heard me?" he choked out afterwards, eyes watering.

"Yeah, I heard you."  
Dean hesitated.  
"You think..."

"Yeah?"

"You think it's too early to go out?"

"If you mean if it's too early for me, I - really felt good about the walk we took, and for what it's worth I haven't felt sick since yesterday afternoon, so if that's what you're talking about, the answer's no. It's not too early."

The older still hesitated, and his hesitation made Sam's heart skip a few beats from sheer hopefulness.  
 _Want something for yourself. Just... please want something for yourself._

"You up for a road trip, Sammy?"

"Yeah, sure. Where to?"

"I thought - maybe - I haven't been fishing in ages. I could, hell, I could buy the equipment from Lebanon and then we could just head wherever."

Sam tried to tone down the ridiculous smile that spread on him as he nodded.  
"Oh, yeah. That sounds - that sounds great."

"Serious? I mean, you're just pretty much going to have to sit around for _ages_ doing nothing."

"To be honest, Dean, I think that's exactly what we both need. I don't want to be alone and you don't want to leave me alone but I think - I think at this point we're pretty much done with each other. So just going somewhere and shutting up - I mean, if you're worried about me, the thought of sitting around doing nothing in the middle of nature is the most appealing thing I can think of. I'm tired of the bunker, it's so freaking huge and quiet like a mausoleum, and I'm not ready to be buried yet. It gets depressing when you can actually move around, but I can't, and just... I miss the open space. I know you know what I mean. This isn't just my problem anymore."

Dean lowered his toast back on the plate, and it caused a scraping sound as it landed. He brought up his cup of coffee and Sam listened to him drink, waiting, until the cup landed back on the plate.  
"Then I guess we have a plan," Dean said and there was a hint of a smile in his tone, "Pack the tablet and a pair of headphones, in case you get bored or my music starts driving you up the wall."

"I'll pack the braille stuff too. The change of environment might help me concentrate."

"Deal."


	8. Family

Dean hated fighting. He'd always hated it, much before he'd ever really had a bad fight to fight for himself. It traced right back to his youth, to all those times when John and Sam had been going at it and he'd been the sole negotiator present, the family's only diplomat, desperately clutching to the shattering pieces of everything he had to hold onto. It had been a wasted effort, as his role was constantly ignored as if his words, his wishes had no place between the two of them arguing, like he was thin air to them. Sam was the spark, he'd never been satisfied with just obeying orders, and John was the raging wildfire that blasted first at Sam and, when he couldn't make the boy see things his way, he lashed at Dean instead, and Dean always did what was wanted of him. It hurt, it hurt like hell each and every time, but Dean took it because it meant there was peace for them for a while; John would leave for a hunt hoping that Dean would reason with Sam, and Dean always would. It was easier between the two of them as they spoke the same language and despite all their differences hardly ever fought beyond the necessary bickering that kept them sane through the long periods of time they spent stuck together with no redemption in sight.

Bobby had cursed it, said that it wasn't John raising Sam but Dean - he'd never said it to the boys and he would have never spoken like that to anyone knowing they were within a hearing distance, but Dean had always been talented at hearing what wasn't meant for his ears. The war at home was a war of attrition upon him, too; it took its toll on him both immediately and at long term, and he coped with it the best he could.  
When playing games of pretend lost its meaning and his world started drying up, he was left with nothing for a couple long years, and those times he spent with aimless wandering with tears still wet upon his face, somewhere out of sight and simply wishing that Sam would manage on his own for the time it took Dean to come back to his senses and return, or that John would stay a little longer than he'd expected, just long enough to make sure he got back, so that Sam was never at risk. But he needed that time alone because without it, one of those days he would have simply collapsed on them, crying and screaming and begging them to stop, trying to make them see that everything they fought about was ultimately a pointless match between a man and a boy who both were so thickheaded they couldn't see the common ground despite standing more upon it than away from it. And when he grew - when he grew, he learned to hold back the tears. He told John what John needed to hear and to Sam whatever he needed to make the younger trust him to hold up his side: Dean always would, but not always to the old man's face. That was one of the first things that put splinters in his relationship with Sam as well, but he couldn't go picking fights when there were already too many between them, and if it meant that he would have to stand disappointment from Sam to avoid one open conflict then so it had to be. In time, Sam matured enough to see things from Dean's point of view as well, and while it didn't completely take away the sulking periods, it at least significantly decreased their length and the general bitterness that the younger aimed at Dean for remaining in his role.

In the end, they'd turned that negative energy into something else. Dean avoided thinking about it as he loaded the car with what he expected they would need on the trip that would likely take the whole day and maybe more - maybe they'd end up sleeping in a motel again, or maybe they'd make the drive home no matter how late it would get. The latter seemed more likely, yet Dean was the only driver and while he was an expert at it, even he needed to sleep.

Distraction wasn't helping him: Dean let out a small sigh when he straightened his back and the memories simply refused to stop flowing. Yes, they'd grown out of the ice ages.  
As much as Dean hated admitting it, he'd often been the reason to why the moment John slammed the door closed behind them, the moment they could hear the engine's sound and the wheels turning from the parking lot to face another long journey, they'd collided like something had physically pulled them together. Lips against each other's, teeth nipping at skin, long-fingered teenage hands all over the other's body tearing clothing off and seeking more flesh, more _acceptance_ , less of the conflict and more sheer oblivion. Sometimes it was just him: sometimes Sam pushed him off twice before the anger subsided and his iron melted into warm water that accepted Dean wholly just the way he was, weak inside the fragile shell that looked tough from the outside but avoided blows like a beaten animal would because a single well-aimed strike could shatter it in its entirety. And he was just as hungry for it, for the reassurance that he was still wanted there, _needed_ , despite the harsh words spoken. It was Dean who sunk into it whole but Sam latched onto him just as desperately, and when their bodies were joined, they were there equally: at the end of the day it could be either of them climbing back over the other's still-trembling body to hurry him up for a second round when the nightmares and fears started crawling back in through the mist of forgetfulness and bliss. It had been like Dean had been gasping for air the whole time as something still held tight around his ankles, twisting and tugging him back down under the surface. He'd always hoped it wasn't the same for Sam, and that whatever it was that kept him feeling raw and wasted after the hours they spent together didn't haunt him like it haunted Dean.

It had taken Dean a while to realise that not _all_ sex was like that; that it was meant to be something in which the people involved were together, for each other, and not because the world around them was collapsing and the other's body was the only thing that they could hold onto. They'd touched each other for the fun of it too, of course they had - they'd spent hours like that, just touching and touching and touching, but it was never the same as it was with other people. There was always an undertone of taking, almost like _stealing_ as if their fingers could suck the life out of the other and bring it back within their own skins, and eventually the touches became almost unkind, yet at once only that much more compelling. They were addictive and exhilarating like a drug which each time demanded a larger dosage to keep providing the insane, blinding high that it then always guaranteed once the hunger was sated.

Dean _hated_ fighting. Not because he feared it, but because the exhaustion no longer vanished from his soul. There was nothing now to replace the lost energy and he could go days without feeling alive, bruised after each misspoken word that had led to a bigger clash. And sometimes, often - much too often - his body and mind both craved the release which he'd learned so throughoutly in his younger years. It didn't help to wake up from the same bed with the man who had once provided him the life he'd needed to move on, but he wasn't the same man anymore, and that was the only thing that mattered. He'd drowned it in women before, but there was no such desire in him now. Instead he had a gnawing feeling inside the pit of his stomach even though there had barely been an argument at all, and despite having said much worse things in the past, he felt guilty for judging Sam now when his only motivation had been his concern for Dean.

The collision of the car's trunk was loud like a gunshot in the garage. Dean moved around the old black Impala and slid behind the wheel in a manner that spoke of decades of growing comfort behind the moves; he glanced at Sam and smiled, expression exhausted but genuinely excited despite the lingering thoughts and memories that seemed to rest heavy upon his shoulders to the point where the weight of them ached within him.  
"Alright, then. Ready to roll?"

"Always."

"I thought of a place, but it's a bit further away."

"Mm-hmm."

"So you should probably catch some rest while we're on the way, Sam, just saying."

Dean's eyes visited the shape of the other man and saw him lean towards the door on his side, nodding although he couldn't know if Dean was seeing it.

"Think we'll need to rent a room?" Sam asked, eyes staring to the edge of the windshield as Dean started the car, preparing to steer them on the road.

"We'll be home tonight," Dean replied with half a shrug, turning his eyes towards the ramp leading out, "I thought of a place just now. It'd be a long trip but we're leaving early. A couple hours of driving at most."

"On our scale, that's not so far."

The older chuckled.  
"I guess not."

The road opened around them, wide and dusty for the dry weather. The sun's light was still cold in the clear blue sky but the way the day looked, it would grow hot before long, perhaps too much so - Dean squinted at the brightness surrounding them before his eyes could grow used to the difference between the cave-like garage and this fair world they'd entered on the other side of it. Sam adjusted beside him as well, his long legs barely fitting into the space offered. It seemed even more difficult than usual for him to find a comfortable position where he sat, but he seemed peaceful for the time being, the frown he had adopted as his resting face now gone, revealing a much younger man from beneath it that Dean had watched for days now. The natural light did its trick on him as well, painting him less starkly than the yellow lights inside the bunker did: it smoothed out the wrinkles that had formed as permanent marks upon the other's skin, but also revealed just how pale and sickly he still seemed, the yellow of electric light having reduced the blue tint around Sam's eyes and the faded colour of his lips.

"You okay, Sammy?"

"Huh? Yeah. The seat feels like it's much smaller than it used to be, though."  
A small laugh topped Sam's response, and the smile on him, while weary as everything else about him, was genuine and deep.

Dean chuckled, falling quiet and returning his eyes upon the road. His fingertips found the radio without him needing to look at it once; the rock tune split the silence in the car, startling Sam and drawing out a displeased grunt from the man driving. The volume slid down fast, but Dean still kept his hand there, considering a sacrfice.

"What d'ya want to listen to?" he finally asked, grudgingly but in a light tone.

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. Seriously. Tell me before I change my mind."

"Just keep it on the usual. I'm okay with that, Dean."  
 _I'm not dying anymore._

Or perhaps he simply longed for normalcy - something to tell him things were alright, things were  _going_ to be alright, that nothing had changed. The volume climbed up again, but not quite as loud as Dean usually would have had it; he glanced at Sam to find his eyes closed and head leaning back already, pale lips parted but closing soon enough as if after a long silent sigh.  
He'd never snored, often not even when he'd been battling a cold, as if a part of him was dead set on being polite even while unconscious. It made him rather pleasant company when it came to sharing rooms for the main part of the year, for those long months they were often stuck sharing the same small enclosure carved out of a roadside motel, but even more so during long drives. They often napped in the strangest, least ergonomic poses available, but they both tended to sleep tight when they had the chance - only in the car, while it was moving, they could really feel safe enough to let go entirely. They'd been that way as children, too: the steady sound of the vehicle headed nowhere in the midst of the heartlands of America would lull them to sleep like nothing else, and whenever John could push himself to it, he rather drove to their next destination overnight than chose to rent a room for a night to keep them in beds. He'd known early on that the car was the only true home the boys would have, and its effect wasn't lost on him. It seemed paradoxical that being piled up on one side or the other of the backseat would be preferable for the growing boys than a good bed with a mattress that embraced their whole bodies, covered by something other than a stained old blanket from the back of the car, but that was the best place for them - had been for Dean for certain, he knew that much, but Sam had always slept soundly beside him just the same and it had been enough to convince him it was true for the younger as well.  
As small kids Dean had always kept his arms around Sam's body, leaving the smaller to sleep on him, often between his legs with one hanging off the seat and the other resting against the back of the seat, and when they'd grown taller and heavier, they'd simply left one or the other leaning to the window while the other rested his head over the other's shoulder. Sometimes, especially when one of them was sick, they'd allowed the other to sleep on their lap, essentially spread across the whole seat as far as its length would go, even when they'd been older - even when Dean had been of age already, Sam would sometimes still slip on him and he'd keep watch over his steady breathing, ready to dig out a napkin for him whenever his stuffed nose would wake him up or to offer him a sip of the takeaway coffee for something warm to soothe his sore throat. And John would drive them through those years as if the car was speeding across clouds: he'd never been a careless driver, but when his boys were sleeping, the asphalt became a smooth surface with no pits or cracks to disturb them at all.

Those nights had perhaps been the best of them all, the most peaceful, despite the odds stacking up against them. And Dean had loved them enough to still carry that peace in him when they took turns sleeping on long trips. He would have still taken Sam on his lap if the younger would have as much as implied he needed it, but Sam wasn't a child anymore.

Sometimes, that felt like a loss for Dean.

 

 

John had come home late that night, late enough for Sam to be fast asleep. Dean had slipped off the bed quietly, dragging aside his own blanket to make his bed look like it had been slept in before entering his father's field of vision: one of the thousand nights the same had happened, and as per usual, John was blind enough to not have noticed even if Dean's bed would have been completely untouched.  
The youth looked awkward with his too long, stretched thin limbs; his childish, yet already beautiful face bobbed at the end of a neck that looked like someone had pulled it up from his delicate shoulders by force. Sam, still tucked safely underneath a thick blanket to keep him from the autumn's cold that seeped into the room like long fingers grasping to take a hold of something that still had the audacity to remain warm, was plump as a child should be with rosy red cheeks and not a sign of adolescence to him yet. Between the two of them, Dean felt unsafe to grow; he was the tallest in his class of new faces just the same, faces he'd lose and forget in a month or two at most, and he felt as if he was changing too fast for the boy still clinging to his childhood unchanged. Their games didn't incite the same excitement inside Dean anymore, and the responsibility he felt over his little brother seemed to grow in weight every day, that burden pushing aside the annoyance at the boy's immaturity and selfishness even as Dean's patience with them seemed to grow thinner with every passing day. He'd swallowed enough anger to be made of it by then, feeling it was unfair to attack Sam for being the child that he was, even as his own exhaustion grew with each passing day. He had nothing solid to hold onto and nobody to talk with about everything that now weighted upon him in the midst of their hectic, dangerous lives. The cold of the approaching winter resided right there in his stomach like the ghastly fingers had taken a hold of him early on, but seeing their father was something of a relief even to that sensation each time. At least John was a man who saw the man growing in Dean: the way he spoke to Dean, even the way he looked at him had changed faster than the inches had grown into the boy's aching bones.

"Dean."

The bow-spined hunter melted away with the magic of a warm, scruffy smile; the dark eyes twinkled with relief, and when the heavy bag full of books and gear had hit the table with a hard yet muffled sound, Dean leaned into the warm hold that pressed over his shoulder and shook him approvingly before turning to a firm pat and retreating again. John pulled out a chair for him, guided him to it with a gesture; "Sam is asleep?" he asked, knowing the answer well enough without Dean nodding.  
"I need a cup. The rain's turning icy outside, I've been driving all night and it gets cold as hell in the car on days like this."

"Make me one, too."

A father should have told him no, but John had began being something else on these nights: no longer a dad to tell Dean what was wise and what wasn't, but a man who took him as an equal, no matter how scrawny he appeared or how many white-headed pimples scattered over his boyish shoulders visible from underneath the sleeveless shirt he wore for the night, or how few still thin and soft but distinctively dark hairs had so far managed to grow upon his jaw and neck. It made the boy proud for once to be growing, relieved to have someone who was glad to see him mature past his childish years, even though the expectations laid on him by his father were ever growing as well.  
They drank coffee in silence, the clock edging the first hour after midnight, darkness still covering the curled-up shape of the boy underneath the blankets.

"How's your brother?" John asked.

Dean's lips felt dry with the bitter black liquid burning in his mouth; he lowered his cup, cleared his throat in the hopes of his voice coming out a bit lower than the bright voice that had only recently gained the foreboding raspiness to it.  
"A pain in the -"

The man sitting opposite of him broke into a tired smile, bags under his eyes only further highlighted by the expression. Dean swallowed, feeling proud.

"He's asking so many questions, I don't know what to tell him anymore."

The smile died down, making way for the usual seriousness.  
"What kinds of questions?"

The cold weight within Dean somersaulted, landing over his chest now as if it was a blob of liquid and the world had been turned upside down.  
"Not about your work anymore, but I caught him smuggling in books - all kinds of crap about ghosts and monsters he could find in the library. I told him to bring them back."

"Good. What kinds of questions?"

Dean felt heat rush upon his cheeks.  
"I don't know."

"Dean."

He shouldn't have said that. Shouldn't have said anything. How could he frame that to John without telling him - without telling him about everything? Would he  _know_ , just because Sam was a nosy little bastard who couldn't keep his mouth shut?

" _Sex_ questions."

Saying the word made him want to drown in his coffee, so he tried. He was used to the taste by now, but he still hated it, and he hated the way it made his heart beat faster, but sometimes it was the best excuse for beer and he didn't have any of that at hand.  
Still, his father was now relaxing again in front of him; another few sips were downed in silence before the man finally sighed, shaking his head and running his fingers through his oily-looking hair. He'd been gone for a while, and Dean didn't know what to feel about it anymore. This was his father - the one man he knew he could lay the world on and have him carry it in turn - but every time he came back, it was as if Dean saw more of a stranger in him. How to talk to him? How to say anything to him at all? There was so much weight in everything he tried to mouth - and the expectations, as invisible as they were, were unyielding and held his voice captive, even in the pride he took for being now regarded in this light. It was difficult to find words he felt were easy to speak, so he swallowed them all down, clinging onto the topic of Sam until it got too difficult for him to navigate. Difficult in the light of... everything, everything that he needed to keep quiet about, because there was no way in hell John would ever find out about _that_.

"I think it's time to give him some answers. He's old enough, I suppose. Damn... he's grown too, hasn't he."

_I don't think you can give him the answers that he needs._

John's smile returned, wearier than ever.  
"I think you can handle that, Dean. I know you don't want to do it, but it's better between you two. You know enough to tell him just what he needs to hear, and it'll be easier for him when it comes from someone more his age. I don't think he wants me to embarrass him."

Even as the man barked a laugh, the cold weight increased in Dean and he nodded slowly, a bitter expression upon him at the prospect of that conversation.  
 _I don't know what to say to him. About birds and bees or whatever, but it's not that - it's more - why I'm not playing those stupid games anymore, why he can't touch me and why I don't want to touch him. I don't know how to tell him not to either, so I keep telling him no and then letting him anyway because he'll never shut up if I won't. I don't know what to say to him; I know we need to stop and I know if you told him the way it is he'd understand, and I could just pretend it never happened and we'd grow out of it... but it's better that you won't, because I'd_ die _if he slipped something to you. You'd kill me if you knew, anyway._

"You're almost a man now, Dean. It's a lot and it ain't always easy, I know. Go to bed now, it's getting late. I'll take a shower."

 

 

The voice seemed to come from somewhere further away, and Sam had trouble waking himself up to it. He held onto it for a while, but decided it had to be a dream, drifting off again; only the weight shaking the car roused him enough for him to realise that it was truly coming from outside of his mind. He opened his eyes, momentarily expecting to catch a glimpse of a parking lot somewhere, maybe a diner nearby, but of course he saw nothing - the shapes in the bleached void of his vision provided no help for him to put down any descriptions for the area they were in.

"You awake? Here's a sandwich."

Dean's voice was cheerful, almost too much so, but the wrapping that pressed against Sam's hand was warm and oily and the bread within it somewhere smelled appeticing enough.

"Where are we?" he asked, fingers stiff as he figured out which end was which of the meal he'd been handed.

"Still in Kansas."

"Not very descriptive."

"About thirty minutes more and we'll be there. Stopped to pee, thought you might need something in that big body of yours."

Sam rolled his eyes, finally certain where the bread started and the wrapper ended. He nibbled at the edge, surprised to find the bread fresh for once.  
"Dean, this tastes _expensive_."

"Well, it wasn't - trust me. Good if it's good, though, because that bodes well for my pie."  
As if summoned by the words, a sweet scent wafted to Sam's nose, mixing with the vinegar from the salad stuffed between his bread. He turned his head towards it, unable to help the smile on his face.  
"Mm. Yeah. Yeah, you're right, it does taste expensive. I'll savour this one."

The car budged forwards, set to the sound of Dean stashing away his excuse for a meal. Unexpectedly, the driver ran his hand through Sam's hair, ending the gesture with a gentle nudge of the man's head towards the window: Sam could almost feel his skull colliding with the glass, but not even a hair on his head made contact. Carefully he continued the motion until he felt his hair bend against the surface, satisfied only when he knew exactly what his position was in context to his surroundings.  
The driver's side window was open, and wind blowed inside when the car sped along the road. The asphalt was cracked and old but not quite badly enough to feel uncomfortable. Sam rather preferred it that way: it told him they were moving and made him feel less uneasy sliding through the white world surrounding him unseen. He kept nibbling at his bread only to find that his hunger grew the more he fed it, and it didn't take him long to have finished his meal completely.  
Unexpectedly, Dean pressed a hot paper cup into his hand next, giving no word of explanation or instruction along with it. None was needed: the coffee tasted stale but not enough to be bad, and Sam relaxed into the seat again, ears keen on trying to recognise the very familiar-sounding ballad playing on the radio from the whipping wind and Dean's off-tune humming that went with it.

"Summer's here, Sammy. Won't be long before you get to dip your feet in the water and  _feel_ it for yourself," the man noted happily; when his fingers turned the volume up, Sam wondered how it was possible that he hadn't immediately recognised Stairway To Heaven.

 

 

"Take your feet out of the water, Sam, you're scaring the fish. Besides, if you catch a cold, it's your own fault. It's almost freaking Halloween, and you look like you're about to dip in like it's June or something. Stop it."

Sam rolled his eyes, hair finally long enough to tickle his brows again.  
"Halloween's not for ages."

Dean's firm grip appeared by his shoulder, pulling him up.  
"I meant what I said, Sam."

A sigh later they were both standing up, equal in height, and the only sound for a while was that of water trickling down Sam's feet and between the planks to the darkness lapping gently below them. The small lake had a mirror surface, and even though the tops of the trees bent submissively to a gentle wind, down at ground level there wasn't a breeze. Sun was setting, bringing with it the chill appropriate for the season even though the week had been much warmer than usual.

The younger brother dipped his wet feet back inside his shoes and crossed his arms over his still boyish chest.  
"How long do you think he'll be gone this time?" he asked after a brief silence, and wasn't surprised to see Dean's features harden, the expression on him growing colder than the season.

"How could I know?"

"I'm just worried about school."

"Stop worrying about school, Sammy, high school won't teach you anything useful anyway."

"I'd rather still have the chance to attend, thanks."  
Sam shifted, irritation rising like bile in his gut, but as was all too typical for him now, the anger subsided fast and turned to defeat instead. He knew there was a part of Dean that understood him, but it seemed that that part was slowly being suffocated by something that the older wouldn't share with him. He'd heard him argue with John about leaving them up here in this cabin with no deadline to it, but any hope in him of anything Dean had to say changing the old man's mind was long dead by then, and if the same went for Dean then Sam didn't blame him for it. He was thankful that Dean tried, even if it would never lead to anything; between these bitter remarks they shared between them, at least those arguments Dean took upon himself still showed Sam that he did care, and that what he said when they were left alone wasn't the whole truth. Yet all the same they were now stuck up here perhaps for months again, perhaps until snowfall - and considering the roads, if it would take until snowfall, then maybe they'd be stuck there for the whole damn year. The car wouldn't make that trek back to civilization, that much was for certain.

Damn this cabin.  
Damn the whole family business to hell.

"I'm going back in."

"Put the stove on. I'll be there in a minute."

They ate fish again, a much better alternative to the stacks of canned food they could have chosen instead. Dean was good at it, good at improvising something a little less horrifying than a diet consisting of nothing but corn and meat that didn't even remember it had once belonged to a live animal. Sam didn't know where the money came from, but the other day they'd stacked up on bread and some semi-locally produced apples to fill up the nutritional quota; he hadn't asked, afraid to put more pressure on his brother. He'd seen Dean count the dollars they had left and it wasn't much - the last thing Dean needed now was Sam asking questions. He was doing this for them, to keep them fed while John was God knew where; neither of them knew when more money would come, if at all before they'd next see their father.

Dark came early, leaving them with the fireplace and a couple oil lamps: this was by far one of the worst places John had ever left them in, but as it was owned and freely given to their use by some hunter friend or another, it had to make do. And it wasn't bad - or it wouldn't have been if Sam hadn't been acutely aware of every additional day that he'd have to make up for if he ever wanted to get to college, anyway. The place was surrounded by endless spans of forest, the lake would have been great for swimming if it hadn't been October but it yet retained its natural beauty, and even if both of them would have preferred some company over the infinite silence of the wilderness, at least they had each other. They  _always_ had each other, and thinking of leaving that behind was something that scared Sam even now that he had nowhere else to go. His desire to live a different life, however, hadn't let go since he'd first realised it was a possibility within his grasp... if only he'd be able to work for it. And right now, as it was, it seemed that John had smelled the rebellion on him and decided to put an end to it.

"Dammit. Goddamnit. Sam. Give me the lamp. I can't get the fire started, something's up with the - if I can't see up there now, we'll have to spend the night without the fire. Fuck."

Sam shifted, slid off the table and grabbed the lamp with him. He was wearing socks now but his feet were still cold, and a part of him regretted ever wetting them in the first place: cold had slithered inside the cabin the moment sun had disappeared behind the canvas of forest across the lake, and without the fire...  
He bent on his knees and thrust the lamp up inside the fireplace, gazing up and seeing nothing. Dean popped his neck, grimaced and leaned back in as well, thrusting Sam aside and taking the lamp from him.

"Great. Now we'll have to freeze to death on top of starvation. I can't see what's up, something's blocking this thing.  _Fuck._ I hope I can - I hope there's something I can do about it tomorrow. I'm sorry, Sam."

_I'm sorry, Sam._

The younger shivered, falling back and leaning his shoulders to the edge of the hard couch behind him. He breathed fire but contained the blaze of it for the sake of his brother; releasing it now would have meant a fight, and he wasn't going to put that strain between 

_I'm sorry, Sam._ As if this was somehow  _Dean's_ fault.

Unluckily for him, Dean seemed to read his mind and turned to glare at him anyway.

"It's not Dad's fault this place is a mess," the older brother snapped, wiping a black streak underneath his nose with the same hand he'd leaned to the fireplace with.

Sam swallowed thickly, his mouth in a thin line. As long as he said nothing, he wouldn't start anything. As long as he said nothing, they'd survive this.  
And yet he failed.

"Whose fault is it, then? Ours?"  
He regretted starting it the moment the words had fallen out, but something in him was breaking.  
"It's _our_ fault that Dad keeps dropping us off in wherever the hell he pleases with _no_ regard to what we wish for, what's _best_ for us?"

"This  _is_ best for us, Sam!"

It was a stupid position to fight in, one of them sprawled over the floor and the other fuming on his knees like some spike-haired beast whose legs had been cut out from underneath him, and Sam would have laughed if the anger in him hadn't made him wish he could just vomit it all up instead.

"Oh, yeah, right. Because leaving us with no money in the middle of nowhere, hoping you can fish enough to keep us alive, and dropping me off school  _yet again_ -"

"Stop whining about the school, fuck - Sam - it's not important!"

The younger could feel his eyes widen, and in a moment he was up, trying to storm off into some direction but for once Dean was faster: he gripped Sam by the hoodie, turned him roughly around and pulled him closer, holding hard enough that the cloth was straining from the seams.

"Don't you run away."

"I'm not running away!" Sam spat back, fist gripping the older's wrist, hoping to bruise, "I'm done with you standing up for the guy and pretending he's perfect when he's neglecting -"

"Don't you  _dare_ say he's neglecting us. He's doing everything he can for us, Sam, and if only you weren't so goddamn ungrateful, then maybe you'd  _see_ -"

"See?"  
The younger laughed, twisting the hand off of his clothes and using all his remaining willpower to not shove Dean away from him altogether.  
" _See?_ As if I'm the blind one here, Dean!"

"Are you purposefully trying to tear this family apart!? Is that what you want, Sam?"

For a moment, Sam's world tilted. He could feel the earth move underneath his feet and he drew breath but lost the air in it somewhere, unable to breathe out again; his eyes sought some clues from Dean's expression, understanding what he meant by that - did he know? Had Sam in any way expressed to him what he was intending - what he wanted to do? Had Dean just held it back, not wanting to voice it in fear of Sam confirming it?

Slowly, the expression in Dean's eyes softened. He was the first to turn away and Sam realised that there wasn't a chance he knew, but perhaps he  _feared_ it even when there was no evidence to support his concerns yet: maybe, just maybe, he was so well in tune with what Sam wanted and needed that he knew to expect it. Or maybe he suspected nothing, and Sam was projecting simply because the thought of leaving was an obsession that burned him relentlessly - regardless, the will to fight had suddenly ceased within the older.

"Move your stuff in the big bed. It's gonna get cold tonight," Dean uttered, his voice lacking strength as if all that had remained had been used up in the few angry words they'd thrown at each other.

Quietly, Sam nodded, glad to have an excuse to leave if not the cursed cabin entirely then at least the room for just a minute to be alone.

 

 

The path down to the river was rockier than Dean remembered it being. He'd chosen this place not only for the memories of it from the time when they'd been kids and John had spared a weekend for them, but for the even shoreline full of round stones that led into the water like a ramp, gradually lowering into the depth. Sam would likely not remember it, not even if Dean told him that he'd been there before and likely not even if he would have been able to see the place - he'd been young back then, barely old enough to walk, but he'd played in the water with Dean while John had stood on a rock for hours on end fishing, keeping a keen eye upon them even though the current was slow and Dean had made sure that Sam wouldn't go in too deep.

Later, he'd been here alone; on a hunt over a decade ago, he'd stopped there to fish on his own. Sam had been studying, John had been chasing their past like he usually did those days, giving it his full attention even when he was on a hunt that had nothing to do with Mary's death. That period had been a lonely one for Dean and he'd lately noticed that his memories of the time were distorted and uneven, that sometimes he had no idea what he'd been doing at all. Perhaps it was because there had been very little to take note of, only long days chasing ghosts and specters like he'd been taught to do for his whole life, followed by long cold nights curled up on the backseat of the Impala that barely felt like a home without his family there with him. He did remember all those times he'd spent staring at the ceiling in that car, the changing colours of it from all those memories melting together: if his mind had been a film, he could have made a movie of those moments, spanning from sunset to sunrise without skipping a moment. It had been hard for him to sleep in those days, and perhaps that was related to the amnesia he seemed to suffer of.

But this place he did remember, and now that he was leading Sam carefully down the path he felt confident and relieved to be there. It just felt good; everything about it felt like it had been the right choice to make. The day had started out well and it seemed that the sharp words exchanged between them had at least served to clear the air, as now it felt that they were a little more at ease with one another. Sam's trust manifested in his hold of Dean's hand, the position of his body close by to that of Dean's as the older climbed down towards the river in front of them. Fishing there was illegal without a permit, but most of their lives were that way - no one would find out, and as long as that remained true, there was no difference between having a permit and not having one. They were free to do as they pleased. No one would come here. No one ever had before.

"Take off your shoes and socks, Sam. You've got to feel the stones - they're all round here."

"It's cold."

"It'll get warmer soon, I promise."

_I promise._ It was enough for Sam. Their hands parted and Dean watched carefully over his brother while the man leaned down and balanced to do as Dean had asked of him, ready to catch him if he'd fall, but he remained steady for a man who had little idea where he was or what was around him. Perhaps he knew and trusted that Dean was doing exactly what he'd set to do, ready to offer a hand to keep him standing if it was needed, but soon he was standing on both feet again, slowly straightening up as if afraid to hit his head on something.

"You see anything yet?"

"I think the sun's to the left of us, behind some trees. I hear the trees, the light flickers in and out in that direction. Ahead there's nothing, the ground's the same, it's just white everywhere."

Dean raised his brows as he reached for the sleeve of Sam's tee and nudged him forwards.  
"White?"

"Yeah. Turns out blindness doesn't equal blackness. At least I don't view it that way anymore."

"Say, if I turned off the lights..."

"It'd still be white."

"Huh. Interesting. Come on, I'll walk you somewhere you can sit down, unless you want to get your feet wet first."

Sam chuckled, shaking his head.  
"Maybe later. I'll scare off the fish."

"Good point. Anyway, yeah, the sun's to our left, so that's interesting. Nothing's in front of it, though, the trees are a bit further away from here. But a good guess anyway. You hear the water, right?"

"Yeah."

It was harder for Sam to walk on the stones without the balance provided by the even soles of his shoes, but it didn't matter. Dean led him slowly to the rocks nearby and guided him down, giving a glance to the same old rock that their father had once stood upon, wondering if he should make a mention of it. A breeze caught him by surprise - it wasn't nearly as cold as he'd expected.  
"We came here once as kids, you know. Dad was here, fishing. It's how I - that's how I found out about it. He'd learned about it from some of his friends, they said nobody ever comes around here, so he took us here to have a day off. To be together as a family. You remember that, Sammy?"

Sam's expression was surprised: he turned his head as if to take in the sight of the place, then shook his head.  
"I don't remember that."

"Ah, well - you were a kid back then, maybe two and definitely no more than four, I wouldn't think... but it's kind of - we didn't get that often, so I still remember it. I slipped on the stones further in there and had a huge bruise for like a month."

Sam chuckled, lowering his gaze towards the ground. He reached for his feet and cleaned off the dirt stuck to them, then reached his hand out, missing Dean by half a foot. Dean caught his arm and brought it towards the right direction, unsure what the gesture had meant, but Sam never specified: his fist balled around the hem of Dean's shirt and stayed there for a moment, and his eyes closed and he seemed to simply concentrate on breathing in the fresh air. Dean allowed him to take his time, finally dropping the bag he'd carried down with them on the ground. Sam's bag was hanging by his shoulder; it was mostly empty, but what was in it was all expensive.

The younger's hand finally released Dean's shirt and he sighed, eyes opening again to stare off into the distance. Then he nodded as if to his thoughts, removed the bag from his shoulder and pulled it up on his lap, securing it in his grip and raising his leg to keep it steady there.  
"Sometimes..." he started, drifting off.

"Sometimes what?" Dean asked, grimacing.

"Sometimes I still miss him."

"Dad?"

"Yeah."

The feeling was mutual. Dean turned his gaze towards the rock again and his chest felt hollow and aching, and he soon looked back at Sam to anchor himself to what he still had here with him. Now it was his turn to nod to nothing in particular, and he ran his hand over Sam's shoulder; to his surprise the younger reached to grasp his wrist, holding his hand there and swaying slightly as he breathed deeply again.

"You alright?"

A quick smile flashed across Sam's lips and he nodded confidently.  
"Yeah. It's just that - you're the only thing - I don't know where I am or what's around me. I can hear the water... but I don't know where it is. I hear the wind but I can't place the trees. I feel this rock here but I'm not sure what surrounds it. It's just... a lot, you know?"

Tension lifted from Dean's form, tension he hadn't noticed he'd built into his muscles. He knelt down in front of his brother, suddenly aware of how big the man was but just as much how much bigger everything was around him, and he held him by his shoulders, face to face, missing the eye contact that he couldn't get from Sam.  
"It's two feet off the water. There's a bank behind your back, covering you from anything in that direction. The trees are over there a bit further away, and there's a cloud over the sun right now. If you stretch your feet there'll be nothing but even ground there. When I get my rod together, I'll be three feet from you, standing on a rock. It's not windy, so I'll hear you, and you'll hear me all the time. There's no one else here, but there are some large birds across the river that I can't make out properly, and you can hear the small ones in the trees on this side. If anyone would come, we'd hear them from a distance. The sky's deep blue, the trees have enough leaves to throw shade wherever they reach, and there's not much growing over the shoreline anywhere that I could see; the river's wide but not very deep here, Dad used to have his line get caught in the bottom a lot before he got the hang of it. I came here once after that but it's never happened to me - I guess I'm a better fisherman than our old man ever was."

Dean noted the tears lining Sam's eyes but ignored them. The younger nodded, let out a breathless chuckle and released his hold of the bag he'd been gripping tight before.  
"Tell me if you catch anything."

"You really think I wouldn't? Damn it, Sam, you're the only person around that I can brag to. The best part? You won't even know that I'm lying about the size."

 


	9. Three Steps Back

Sam hesitated. He could feel the water over the tips of his toes and it was still cold even now that the bright day had turned from warm to hot enough to break sweat, but it wasn't the temperature he worried for, it was the slippery surface of the stones the water lapped over. Dean held his arm in a firm grip, one arm underneath it to support him by the shoulder in case he would slip, the other hand holding his arm near the wrist more for comfort than for physical support. Sam could hear his breaths, the small concentrated huffs passing through his nostrils and the complete silence of his inhales drawn through parted lips: he was nervous because Sam was, and it was that fact which above all gave Sam the courage to step further.

"You still got your shoes on?" he asked from Dean as he relaxed by Sam's side, following him into the waves.

"Crap," the older muttered, topping the sentence with a chuckle, "Stay put, I'll throw them off. Damn, thank you."

"You're welcome," Sam huffed, then laughed and added quietly: "You idiot."

Dean grunted, his arms now gone from Sam's side.  
"Shut up, Sam," he breathed out, and soon afterwards Sam heard a shoe land on the ground behind them.  
Another followed, and in no time he had his brother by his side again, the reassuring warmth and hold of his hands returning almost exactly where he'd had them before.

Sam led them on; Dean's role was simply to make sure that where they headed was safe, and to catch him if he fell. The more likely outcome of Sam slipping was that they'd both hit the drink, but in the end it was the thought that count. The water wasn't so cold anymore when Sam was up to his ankles in it, and he could feel the natural flow of it wash away the dust from between his toes and sway the hair growing over his legs and the top of his feet as he waded in deeper. He smiled, at first without noticing it himself but then consciously, and he wondered if Dean was seeing it: just in case the other was, he smiled a little wider, allowing the river wash away the anxiety and stress in him and calling the gentle breeze to wipe his worries away as well.  
They walked slowly onwards until the water reached almost up to Sam's knees. He knew that by then it had to be lapping up his brother's thighs, and he wondered if the other had taken the time and care to roll up the legs of his jeans. Curiosity got the better of him.  
"Did you roll up your pant legs?"

"Don't be stupid."

"Did you?"

"Of course I did."

Sam's knees bent: he could feel the water's surface tilt towards his legs as he reached down, surprised to find out that Dean wasn't lying. The older scoffed when he stood up straight again.

"Didn't trust me, huh."

"No."

"You wound me."

"Right. Where are we?"

There was a small pause: the river smelled, not bad but of natural waters, fresh with an undertone of rotting vegetation and algae.

"The river bends here, goes by a curve with a few trees and you can't see over to that direction. There's still a wide open ahead of us and it gets deeper from here, no sudden drops but you could probably swim here if you wanted to -"

"If I knew where the surface is, anyway."

"Yeah, well, there's that too. To the left, upstream, the river is a lot wider but it stays shallow the whole way up there. This is the part where it gets deeper and where the fish are, too. Downstream... I don't know for sure but it looks a lot deeper around there."

Sam nodded. He tugged them onwards, coursing slightly to the right and feeling the bottom climb upwards with him. He walked until his feet met with the surface again and Dean walked out of the water, only one hand still over his wrist: his fingers slid down until they were barely touching the top of Sam's hand, and they stood there for a moment.

"What are you seeing?" Sam asked quietly, his voice curious yet heavy.

"There's a bird of prey circling the river. Some kind of a hawk by the size of it, but it's against the sun so it's all black to my eyes. I hope it's not into my fish, because I worked for that load."

The younger huffed softly. He lifted his hand a bit until his fingers bent against the bottom of Dean's palm, and he felt the older grip his hand almost only implicitly, as if to let him know he was there and acknowledged his need for closer contact. There was a tension there between them, something that Sam couldn't put to words, but it wasn't the bad kind; it felt as if they were playing about some unspoken law in their relationship that would have otherwise prevented a gesture such as this but due to the circumstances now didn't hold up so steadfast anymore, and both of them were trying to adjust to the change and relax into accepting it the way it came. But Sam needed it: he needed the reassurance that Dean was there close to him and that he wouldn't go anywhere, as if Dean would ever leave him alone like this. It didn't matter, however, as every and each time they parted here Sam felt hollow within, like a lost child stuck in a landscape with no defining features, and the very thought of facing that vastness of unknown alone made him step closer to safety.

"I'd like to read now," he said, then cleared his throat and clarified with a grimace; "I'd like to _try_ to read now."

"Sure. I'll bring you back to your home base. Need me for it, or will you brave it on your own?"

"You can keep fishing if you want to. Stay away from me, Dean, really - this is your only chance until God knows when again."

The shorter let out a bark of a laugh and sighed.  
"I like you a lot better out here, you know. It's the fresh air, you don't smell half as bad outdoors."

"I'm starting to think it's toxic, Dean."

"Because it makes me like you better?"

"Because I feel like I'm nine years old all over again. Get me back to my agency, please."

"Alright, right."

 

 

They stayed until hunger drove them back on the road. Dean drove faster this time, if only to make it to the kitchen before starvation would hit in, and he could feel his stomach growling though the rumbling of the engine drowned out the sound. They unpacked together: Sam carried the bags with him and Dean held onto the ice-filled container now holding enough fish to pass for a dinner and some, and they made their way across the bunker to the kitchen without any incident. Sam showered while Dean prepared the food, and to the older's surprise he turned up by the library before long to sit there with his fingertips on the children's braille textbook while Dean set the table for two. He didn't speak but Dean sensed the ease in him and it made him feel lighter, too. He hadn't expected much from the trip and the surprise within him filled him with an unusual sense of success now that the situation between them had taken such a definite turn for the better. The bad start no longer meant anything, and for once Dean felt like he'd done the right thing with Sam, like for once he'd really understood what they both needed, and not just what _he_ had needed; Sam had helped, of course, but it wasn't too often that Dean knew how to listen to him. Or did he simply just remember the wrong choices he'd made rather than the times he'd got it right? Of course he knew his brother. He had to do him good by it _sometimes._

"You alright, little brother?"

"Yeah. I think I'm starting to get this."

"Good. I think I did justice to the haul, too."

"You're a good cook, Dean."

"Way to raise the bar for me there. Anyway, gonna bring it in now, so put down the book, yeah?"

The younger slid back the book and closed it with a thoughtful frown on his face. It smoothened out as he turned towards Dean again.  
"We need to talk, Dean."  
His voice didn't promise a light talk, and the choice of words made the hair on Dean's neck stand up.

"Huh? Right now? I'm starving, man."

"Well, I already started, but if you still have your appetite I guess it can be delayed."

Dean rolled his eyes, grabbed the back of a chair and pulled it out for himself.  
"Goddamnit, Sam," he uttered through a grimace, "What is it?"

"I'm tired, so I'm going to turn in for today after dinner. I just wanted to ask if you're coming in later."

"I guess. I still have a few things I want to get done today. So?"

"No, it's just - I want to be clear on it. Firstly... thanks for staying. Really, I... I've thought about it a lot today, what you're doing for me, what you're giving up for me. And I was thinking about the arrangement we have and it's... I think I need it, I think I _still_ need it, because what happened the other night when I tried to go about it on my own - I don't feel like that was a one-off, and I don't really want to risk it yet, so I'm glad you're staying with me. But I just want to know if that's... if you're really comfortable with it, and if we're clear on why we're doing it."

"You think we're not clear?"

Sam shrugged.  
"I don't know. It's not like we've talked about it."

"Yeah, well, I'd rather not. Look, it is what it is. I get that it freaks you out to wake up after a nightmare like this and it makes sense that I'm staying there. That's all it is."

"Thanks."

Dean was about to stand up, but Sam reached out his hand to stop him: he didn't touch Dean, wouldn't have made it from the distance between them, but the gesture was clear enough and so the other's weight landed back in his chair. Dean sighed quietly, feeling a light film of sweat upon his features and his heart racing a bit faster in his chest.

"So are you comfortable with it?" Sam asked him again, "Really."

"Why wouldn't I be?"  
The question made them both still. Dean could see it from Sam's pose and his own breath had caught in his throat; what a stupid, _stupid_ question to throw out there. Between them, there were a thousand reasons why he wouldn't be comfortable with it - why he _wasn't_ \- but also a thousand reasons for him to want to forget them, for Sam especially to want to forget them. And now he'd opened the Pandora's box with the grace of a rampaging mammoth.  
He rephrased.  
"I mean, if you're talking about the other night, I thought we already talked it through. I'm not going to say a thing more about it, anyway."

"I know. And we're good about that, I just feel like we need to really make clear what we're doing here and why we're doing it."

"Okay. So, what's it to you, Sammy?"

The tall man adjusted, his freshly washed and still clumped hair falling over his face. He sat like that for a moment before nodding to his thoughts and brushing away the strands from his forehead, but his eyes remained aimed towards the opposite end of the hall and not towards Dean's direction.

"You're there to make sure I don't lose my grasp on reality."

"Straight and on point, I like that."

"It's not like you don't know how bad the nightmares get. For both of us. Which brings us to you."

"Hey, don't pin it on me. I'm there to look after my baby brother, that's all."

"Okay."  
A small smile lingered on Sam's lips for a moment before he relaxed with a sigh and nodded.  
"That's all."

"Good. Are we ready to eat?"

"Yeah."

"Finally. Thank you, Sammy, that was a good conversation we just had there, totally worth starving over."

 

 

Dean trembled. It wasn't the cold, it was the proximity; his body remained curled underneath the blanket cast over his body, but Sam was spread out with a leg raised up and the other resting wide on the bed. He'd grown so tall his legs seemed to span twice the space they'd taken a year ago and Dean was still getting used to that - getting used to the wide shoulders, the angular shape of the boy's jaw, the whole form of him changing. He didn't look like a kid anymore, he looked about Dean's age, and it had all somehow happened within a year or two at most, first so slowly that Dean hadn't even noticed and then suddenly all at once.

They hadn't spoken since Sam had left to pick up his blanket. He'd rolled right into bed and Dean had joined him there later when it had already been dark, and now he pretended sleep but Sam didn't even bother to try. They both knew what was up next but the situation seemed stalled, because they were both still too tense to move further. Something rolled down the cabin's rough roof into complete silence. Nothing moved but Sam's chest, over which the crusty window above them was spreading a pale stretch of light. Dean closed his eyes, aching, a pressing anxiety within his chest that he couldn't relieve yet - it gnawed him like a trapped animal caged within his body by his bones, hollowing him and constantly kicking at his lungs so that he felt as if choking.

Then, without a word, the younger next to him rolled around. His fingers pressed over Dean's shoulders with violence and the animal was free again: it launched forwards, lips against the pale smoothness of a neck, and brought Dean's hand to press into the mattress on his brother's side, knee already pushing between the other's legs, feeling him hard through the boxers and the blankets between them. The next struggle was only to kick aside the cloth that separated them; one of the blankets, Sam's, ended up over Dean's back as they tore off their clothes as if to hide that shameful display from view, but it was Dean who ripped it off to see something - his heart was beating so hard that it hurt, and the usual choking feeling was gripping his throat so hard that he felt like throwing up. Sam's knees held against his hips, one leg over him almost kicking him down already, and one of them was down staring at the ceiling above and the other upright staring at the younger's swiftly rising and falling chest, calculating the next move but struggling against the pressure pushing at him.

"Stop kicking me, for fuck's sake, Sam."

Hair like a goddamn halo, spread over the dirt brown sheet. Nobody could say that Sam wasn't beautiful, but like this, like this it took Dean's breath away. He looked fragile, but his defiance got to Dean just the same - he could never just _be_ , sit back and let the fuck go, no, he had to fight all the time like his whole life was a war.

"Get me off," the younger grunted, eyes still at the ceiling; he couldn't look at Dean from his anger, and Dean wanted to bite him just to make him.  
But no marks, not on Sam anyway. Something in Dean had started wishing he could risk them on him, just let the younger's teeth run their course on him, bare for all world what a sick fucking freak he was - and how there was nothing between them, literally; not an article of clothing, barely even skin to separate one body from another. Some desperation in him called for him to shout it from the rooftops: that this was what they were, that this was what they did, that this was the only thing that made either of them feel alive anymore. He ran the tip of his nose down the middle of the other's chest, then his tongue down him until he felt hair against it. Too low. It made him shiver as he pulled back up, hand already gripping the hard shaft of the other's sex.

God, they were in deep.

Sam bucked up into the touch, his eyes closed and an expression of sheer pain over his features that crossed right into the realm of pleasure - his lips parted with a needy, filthy sound, something that struck fear within Dean as much as it gave him a jolt of excitement like nothing else. His hand knew its way around the younger, the shape of his cock and the curve down and maybe he'd once felt disgusted touching him like this, but now he was numb like from anesthesia, careless, thoughtless, a machine with a strong intent set on a sole course it ran through over and over again. He made the other tremble, knew exactly how to, but he wasn't immune to the way Sam's fingers treaded his body either. He shook as much as Sam did by the time the fantasy struck him, and arousal dumbed down his brain to a state where for a fleeting moment it seemed like a good idea; he pressed his palms over the other's thighs and pushed them up, spread them, and the moment halted.

Sam panted, but his eyes were no longer closed. He was staring at Dean with the most intent look on his features, sharp and striking and calculating. Dean let go, straightened up and looked away. He licked his lips to undo the desire - what a stupid idea, worst he'd had in centuries.

"Do it."

"What?"

"Do it."

Sam's voice was dead certain, tinted with need but pressing, demanding.

"I'm not going to fucking do it."

"Why not?"

"Because I could hurt you, bitch. C'mon, I'm not an idiot. I'm not going to do anything."

Sam pushed himself up again, leaned back on his hands and kept staring at Dean from an even ground. Dean grimaced.

"I said I won't," he growled at the younger.

"I heard you."

"Then why are you still _staring_ at me like that? Stop it, Jesus."

The stern look on Sam's face melted away into a relaxed chuckle; the anger in him seemed to have already subsided. No wonder.

"C'mon, Dean. It's not like we haven't done worse."

"We _haven't_ done worse, is the issue here, Sam."

"You want to do it. Don't think I haven't noticed."

"It's not about what I want."

"No? Well, guess what, it's two of us. So why not?"

"Sam - I could seriously fuck you up."

"No, you can't. You wouldn't."

True, he wouldn't. Dean swallowed, closed his eyes and leaned back into a sitting position. Their smell was too thick in the air, he couldn't close it out from his mind. But how could he even consider? He looked at Sam again, the bangs sticking to his forehead and the curls that poked right out by his ears, the clarity in his eyes and the sheer excitement that he was barely holding back just slightly tinted with the appropriate nervousness, maybe fear.

"I don't have anything with me," he noted in a growly voice, almost desperate to hang onto any reason to _not_ give in.  
But he was losing; damn, he did want it. And if Sam wanted it too, then why the hell...

"I have some lotion. It's worked before."

"Dude. Way too much information there."

Sam just shrugged.  
"It's not like you haven't done it," he huffed.

No, it wasn't like Dean hadn't. But there was a difference between knowing he'd had half a fist up his ass and knowing that Sam had been through it, too. The orgasms were... yeah. Worth it.  
He didn't know what to say to that so he just sat still, aching hard and struggling against the temptation - losing was inevitable, and Sam seemed to know it.

"Look, I know what I'm getting into," Sam grunted with a hint of frustration back in his voice, "let's try and if it doesn't work out then too bad."

"Try it. But if it so much as stings _once_ , you let me know, alright?"

"Yeah, whatever."

"No, I'm serious, Sam. I hurt you once and it's _over._ "

"Alright, alright."

He was smooth like velvet around the older's index finger, taking in two joints without so much as a sound. Dean kept an eye on his features, knowing already that he'd need to read the pain from the other's face because he'd never let him know if he was uncomfortable - maybe later, but not at this stage. It seemed however that he was perfectly good with this exploration, and Dean couldn't help shaking to the thought of him alone in the shower - the only place they ever had enough privacy to play around in the first place - and he wondered just how long Sam had held back from asking, as he seemed to want it as much as Dean had. The sense of doing wrong was back, however. It crept up along Dean's spine and nagged by his ear, _this isn't right this isn't right this isn't right_ , even as he added in a second finger, even as he added in the third.

"Slow down," Sam uttered, lips barely moving and with his eyes closed again.

"Did that hurt?"

"No. Just slow down. Humour me."

His hand moved down his body, gripping his cock and Dean had to look away; he could feel Sam move as he moved his own fingers, but he didn't turn back to see it, didn't want to.

"Take me."

"Sam... seriously."

"Please. I can take you on, it's not a big deal."

"It's not a - right. Yeah. Whatever you say."

"Dean, come _on._ I'm 15, going 16, we've been doing this _forever._ "

"I'm not going to fuck you."

"You're already fucking me, what's the big deal?"

Finger by finger Dean retreated; he settled back, throat closing in, fingers filthy with the cream, eyes on the container and nostrils flaring with the breath he could barely draw.  
"Hand off your cock when you talk to me," he finally grunted, slapping the other's wrist more to vent his frustration than to enforce his words.

Sam growled. He sat up again, wiped his forehead and glared at him.  
"Dean, I want this, okay? And I know you want to do it, so let's cut the bullshit -"

"You don't get it, Sam, I can't - I really can't do it. You're my _brother_."

"Yeah. I know that, thanks."

Dean shrugged. It was the best argument he had left. Truth was, no matter how much he wanted it - needed it, almost - the guilt was still overwhelming. It was strangling him, physically cutting off his breath, and he knew it was the same for Sam no matter how brave a front the boy was putting up for him.  
And he _was_ a boy. Just a boy.

"Sam -"

"Dean. Please."

"Why do you want it so bad?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

"Don't avoid my damn question, Sam."

"I want it because I want it. I want it because you want it. I want it because the other crap isn't cutting it for me anymore. It just doesn't - feel like it's enough."

"Dad will kill me, Sam."

"When you tell him, he will."

They looked at each other for a moment and Sam smiled - the expression on him was gentle, the opposite of the persuasion in his words. He chuckled and shook his head, looked away; the light behind him illuminated his profile, the pointy nose and parted lips and the curve of his shoulder, the bump of his Adam's apple. And he was right; John would never know, it didn't matter. John would kill Dean for any one of the ways he'd touched Sam and he'd stopped caring a long time ago. Or no, he hadn't stopped _caring_ , but the need to be here was much stronger than the fear he felt towards being caught.  
"I know you're afraid you'll hurt me or I'll regret it, but I swear, you _won't_."

"Sam, it's not the same as fingering."

"Really? I didn't know that."  
The side-eye the younger gave Dean made him grimace.  
"I won't let you hurt me."

"Sam -"

"Dean, I promise."

Their eyes met again, serious but without the defiance from before.

"Lie back."

Sam fell down with a relieved sigh. His hand crossed down from Dean's shoulder.  
"But if you _really_ don't want to, Dean -"

"No, you're right, I do. I just - I feel like crap."

"Yeah. I do, too. But I really want this, so I guess... it's not like we haven't already crossed the line."

Dean couldn't say anything. He leaned down over the younger's body and closed his eyes one more time, fist full of cream and heading down.  
"One more thing, Sammy," he uttered as he spread the lotion over his length, terror caught in the pit of his stomach right alongside the desire he felt.

"Yeah?"

"Bite me. Scratch me. Do whatever you feel like and don't hold back."

"Dean... Dad will literally kill us if -"

"I slept with a girl."

"Oh. So you'll just lie again."

"I'm good at what I do, Sam."

 

 

Sam heard the door open. He raised his head, climbed onto his elbows and smiled wearily to the sound of Dean entering the room. The older stilled and chuckled before closing the door.  
"Oh, hey, you're not asleep yet."

"No. I guess my brain doesn't know how tired my body is."

"Sucks for you."

The man moved in. Sam fell back onto his pillow and listened to the sounds of Dean changing into nightwear somewhere next to the bed, a yawn breaking through as if to mock him for the wasted effort he'd put into falling asleep.  
"All done for today?"

"They got the wraith down. Just got a text from Garth, he thought it'd make us feel better to know that."

Sam grimaced.  
"So basically everyone knows I made us turn tail."

"It's not like that, Sam. Injury happens, you know that. It's just good to know it's finished. One wraith less to worry about, right?"

"Yeah, I guess."  
And yet the poison's effects were still lingering. The thought made Sam uneasy and he was certain that Dean was thinking the same thing, but neither of them wanted to address it. Not yet.  
The older's steps carried him next to the bed and soon enough, after he'd placed his phone on the bedside table, his weight landed next to Sam. He didn't settle to sleep yet, however; Sam heard him fumble around with something in his hands.

"What are you doing?" Sam asked, eyes closed.

"Cleaning the glass over mom's photo."

"You brought her here?"

"Yup."

"If this takes any longer, your whole room will end up in mine," Sam noted with a weary chuckle, turning around on his side.

"Nah, just this thing. Makes me feel more at home having it around."

"I guess I don't have to worry about you forgetting it, either."

"Not a chance."  
The frame landed on the table and soon after Dean was battling with his blanket.  
"I love that photo."

"Yeah."

"Sam, one question."

"Yeah?"

"Are you _ever_ going to decorate this room?"

"It's decorated enough for me."

"It's not decorated at all."

"As I said."

Dean let out a small laughter and finally settled with his back turned to Sam.  
"Whatever. Good night, Sam."

"Good night."

 

 

_Body against body. He's always been a gentle lover - it hasn't changed. The years haven't taken that, none of those touches that make Sam feel like he's vulnerable but safe, something so precious the worth is immeasurable. The only way he's ever felt like it is to be right here._

_Body against body._

_Moving; his own hips unwilling even though he craves it, even though he's so hard it hurts, and he avoids the implied kisses, turns away from them. His fingertips hold tight and push deep into the man's flesh and his scent is so strong he can't turn it off, can't pretend it's someone, something else. He's never felt this tainted, but it feels so good it's hard to decide which matters more. He already ended up here, what does the rest mean anymore? It's over._

How did he end up here?

_He hasn't been taken since, but it feels exactly the same. Flesh within flesh, each movement grinding against the inside of his hip in a manner no touch should - it's not skin, it's what's underneath, it's what's within him, body inside a body, accepting the man who shares his blood (but only the purity of it) as a part of it. It always felt like that was the only way he was full. Now it burns, makes him feel sick; he can remember that from the last time they shared the skin._

_Breath against breath._ He doesn't want that kiss.

White broke within the darkness inside Sam's mind; it burned holes into the picture like an old film burning in the reel. He choked, unsure what direction he was facing but body tense and up and sweat rolling down his skin; his breaths were hasty, sharp, but he heard the reality in them. Blind as he'd been when he fell asleep, he reached for the edge of the bed and stumbled out only to lose his footing, but Dean was there; a pair of firm hands grabbed him, one sliding off but catching a hold before the other lost its grip as well. Sam hung half off the bed, panting audibly, but the hands pulled him back in. He hadn't realised there were tears on his face and he wiped them off hastily as the older pressed him against his body, the _last_ place he wanted to be but into which he leaned regardless to catch his breath. He could hear the thundering of his brother's heart inside the chest his shoulder was pressed to, one leg pulled awkwardly underneath him and the other hanging off the side of the bed.

"It's okay, Sammy. Just a nightmare."

Not just a nightmare. The hardness was still there, melting away into the disgust and shock but present regardless; Sam moved his free leg to cover it before strength seemed to melt away from him and he let out a long sigh.

"What time is it?" he heard himself ask, barely managing the words and relieved at the presence of them.  
His voice barely trembled.

"Six in the morning. You wanna - you wanna get up? Take a shower? Man, you're soaking wet."

Sam nodded slowly.  
"A shower sounds nice," he confirmed, unable to cover up the discomfort in his voice.  
He pushed himself back on his own, Dean's hand staying upon his arm to make sure he was up to the task. He didn't know if the light was on - couldn't stand up if it was, couldn't uncover the shape of his body, not before the nightmare's after-effects had worn off. Not long until then, perhaps Dean wouldn't even have noticed anymore. The shame burned and stung like acid and kept him under the cover of what little he could offer: he felt exposed and disgusting for more than just the sweat on him, how it glued his shirt down against his skin.

The older let out a sigh and slid his hand down, patted Sam on the back and stood up.  
"I guess I'll go make some coffee, then. You good on your own, Sammy?"

"I'm fine. Thanks."

"What was it about? The nightmare."

"Nothing I want to talk about. It's alright. I'm alright. Just a nightmare, that's all."

"You sure it's that clear?"

"Yeah. This time, it is."  
It cut off mid-action. Reality didn't. He couldn't trace the background - couldn't remember the touching, the wrestling or the sounds of their voices, couldn't remember closing in on the man's body, couldn't remember the conflict and the fear and the anger and the arousal rising in the midst of those feelings like it was a summoning.  
There was no foreplay. There was always foreplay. Words spoken. Demanding touches. _Something._

"I just need to wash it off me and we can start the day."

The white seemed to be breaking off still: Sam aimed his gaze towards where he wanted the table to be, but couldn't make out the shape. A soft sigh crossed his lips and he shrugged, disappointed, but Dean didn't notice or just didn't make a note of it. The older stood up, threw him his towel.  
"See you in the library, then."

"Yeah. I'll be there in a bit."

"And I'll have coffee ready for you when you do. Any breakfast?"

"No, thanks. Maybe later. When I don't feel sick anymore."  
God, did he feel sick.

"Thought so."

Finding the shower had gotten easier - almost _easy_. He could step in and turn on the cold water to wash him like he was sighted already. This time he didn't rush through it however; things like this didn't wash off easy, he knew that well enough. Sometimes it took a full hour to wash out the taste of copper in his mouth after a dream had brought it back, convince him that his stomach wasn't bloated from the weight of warm, sticky blood again; it took much longer for the craving to subside. This time, there was no craving, only the feeling of filthiness, guilt and more, feelings that he was too tired and too scared to dig through as if afraid they'd grab a hold of him and drag him in and never let go - that they'd consume him whole in a single swallow, perhaps, or simply that the stain would never leave if he'd so much as touch them.  
His sex felt sore as he ran his hands over it, fingers around it, just to get it clean and nothing more. Just touching it now made him feel like throwing up.

It wasn't that difficult to figure out why his brain was making up these visions now, but knowing why didn't make it easier for him to accept it as nothing but his subconsciousness adjusting into the present circumstances. Yes, it was repetition; yes, he was the baby brother again, the fragile thing that Dean was protecting, the demanding, whiny _bitch_ he'd been in his teens. He shivered to the thought, as it made him feel weak in a way he couldn't accept and which his whole self had fought against for such a long time, but what could he do? He had his plates literally served for him. He had his books read for him. He had his hand held and his body covered by the warmth of another's in the night, and Dean was there like a shadow over him, ever present, ever protecting, making sure he got what he needed. What else could his mind expect of the situation? There was no difference. The years between now and then didn't matter to his conditioned psyche. Nothing did, nothing would. It was a weight he'd carry with him for the rest of his life, and Dean... Dean would, too.

It was one of the reasons he'd wanted to talk the night before, to chase that ghost a little bit further as he'd felt it crawl back into their midst slowly but certainly, creeping up to them still unprepared. But they _weren't_ unprepared: Sam knew he had control. He knew Dean kept his distance. The freakout had proven as much, proven _enough_. They were keeping it at bay. It just had to be addressed - only there weren't words for anything like it. The longer the condition stayed, the deeper in they waded to that territory, and Sam feared it wouldn't be enough for long to acknowledge it was there _somewhere_ \- that if this went on, if he still needed to have his hand held for a day or two more, they'd have to face it head on. He couldn't deny that a part of him wanted to do exactly that, had wanted ever since he'd ran off to Stanford, but what could he say? How could he bring it up now when it had been more than a decade since they'd buried the bones? Buried - or dumped them at a roadside grave, scattered dirt over them as life had cruised off in its broken-down ride. No wonder it still haunted them today.

The door creaked.

Sam turned down the water. He wasn't sure if he'd really heard anything; Dean couldn't have been looking for him - Dean knew exactly where he was. Nothing further carried up to his ears, so he pushed his head back under the flow and shivered to the cold touch of the water pouring down. Slowly he reached to turn it back to warm and then all the way to hot; the rush of blood into his tense muscles made him feel dizzy and relaxed, but he couldn't shake the feeling of being watched.

 

 

Dean leaned to the kitchen counter, eyes upon the black liquid dripping into the pot in front of him. He'd stared at it for long enough to see half the amount measured sitting at the bottom when the sound of a wet pair of feet carried up to his ears and he finally turned, making his way back towards the library.  
"Sorry, no coffee yet. The old filter burst all over the floor when I took it out, had to clean the mess up and it took forever to scrub out from between the tiles. All refreshed and ready for today?" he asked, a tired smile on him - he didn't even care that Sam couldn't see it anymore.  
This was becoming routine for them, and for once it felt like things were proceeding quite smoothly. With the exception of the rough awakening, at least Sam seemed to be adjusting, and Dean felt it was easier for him as well to treat Sam the way he needed to be treated. Yesterday was still lightening his mood as well; the fresh air had certainly worked its magic on him and he hoped that the same went for his brother.

"Did you check on me in the shower?" Sam asked him, clumsily finding himself a seat and leaning to it instead of sitting down.

"No. Why would I check on you in the shower? I've been down here picking up tiny ass bean crust from the floor, not creeping on you while you wash yourself. What kind of a brother do you think I am?"  
He spun around, took a few steps and then turned back, grimacing.  
"You think you got peeped on by a ghost?"

A lopsided smile turned Sam's lips as he sat down, shrugging.  
"I didn't close the door properly, I guess it just opened on its own. It's hard to tell sometimes - I can't see if it's not all the way in."

"Oh, yeah. It does that. I really need to take a look at it. And you know what? I honestly thought it was you pulling a prank on me, too."

Sam chuckled and shook his head.  
"I guess not, then."

"Nope. Not me. Anyway, I'm gonna bring out the coffee now - it should be ready."

The younger nodded and Dean turned around again, finishing the walk to the kitchen in time to catch the last drop falling into the pot. He waited for another for half a minute but when nothing happened, he reached for a new pair of cups and filled them both, poured in a bit of milk into the other one and carried them back into the library with him. He'd forgotten the braille book on the the table, but Sam hadn't; he'd already opened it, fingers upon a seemingly random word in the middle of the book. It seemed that he'd simply picked the page he'd opened the book from, and to Dean it was as good a plan as any.

"Here's your coffee. Good morning, brother."

"Morning, Dean. Can you help me out a bit?"

"Sure, yeah. What do you need?"

"What's the first letter here?"

"It's an A. Dude, it's just a single dot, how can you not remember that?"

"Apple?"

"Gold star to you. How did you guess it?"

"If the first letter is an A, then the ones after are a double P - I don't know what else the word could be. I wasn't sure if the first dot was a part of the second letter since I'm still not very good at getting the distance right, so I can't really tell the whole word apart. But that's a start, right?"

Dean nodded, then caught himself from it a second later.  
"Yeah," he corrected himself, "That's definitely a start. Nice work, Sammy."

All the way back to kindergarten.

_"A. B. C. What comes next, Sammy?"_

_"D. As in Dean."_

_"D as in Dean. What comes before S as in Sam, you know that?"_

_"I don't know."_

_"R. But you can't pronounce that right, so it's not like you could say it to me."_

_"Llllll."_

_"Yeah, whatever, Sammy. A, B, C, D..."_

_"E!"_

Dean shook his head and sat down at the end of the table. The coffee was bitter and strong but woke him up well enough. He watched Sam for a reaction to the extra spoonful of grounds in it, but the man was too caught up trying to work out the word LION on his textbook to even taste the coffee he was drinking.

"It's an animal, Sammy."

"It has an O in it."

"Yes, it does."

"Mm. I'll get back to you on it," the younger chuckled, grabbing his mug and bringing it to his lips.  
The skin surrounding his mouth was still sleep-pink even underneath the crude stubble on him; he hadn't shaved in the shower, and Dean hadn't done it yet either. By the end of this week they'd both look like hillbillies, or like Singer juniors - maybe it wouldn't matter. Maybe they'd bring their beards all the way up to where Bobby's ashes were scattered and drink a beer to his memory.

His photos were still in Dean's room, and the memory of him ached inside him.

"Lion? I'm not actually reading it, the size just matches up."

"Yup, that'd be a lion. I think the pictures are highlighted, you could have just tried to draw it out."

Two of Sam's fingers slid over to find the drawing of a lion nex to the word: he dragged them lightly around over the lines standing out of the page and smiled.


	10. Liquid Courage

After breakfast they returned to the gym. Sam kept the memory of his dream at bay but the lingering feeling of it followed him everywhere, creeping just beside him through each corridor until they reached the gym. Dean led him over to the mattresses and left him standing there while he turned off the lights again, and they did the first stretches in full darkness - or in Sam's case, a uniform, swirling matte of white.

"How's the wound feeling?" Dean asked him, fingertips upon his arm to keep track of where he stood.

"It's healing. I barely notice the ache anymore."

"Can you stretch that side yet?"

"No. But it's... be careful not to hit it directly, otherwise I don't think we have to worry about it that much."

"Right. So no wrestling and no punching sides. Goes for both parties."

"Of course."

"You know, we should have done this earlier. You realise how _much_ we fight in the dark? And we've never done practice without lights on. It seems obvious now."

Sam huffed. He rubbed at his arm and stretched his neck, eyes aimed towards some direction he couldn't tell anymore: he wasn't even sure where the door was through which they'd entered. The mattresses bent like rubber underneath his feet whenever he changed the point of his weight upon them.  
"Dad used to take us shooting in the middle of the night sometimes. You remember that?" he asked.

"Mm. Yeah, he did do that. And you _hated_ it."

"Yeah. I just wanted to sleep because I had school in the morning. You never said anything."

"I guess one of us knew what was the real education we needed," Dean chuckled, his palm slapping heavy against Sam's shoulder.  
The grip grew stronger and turned into a push: Sam sent a punch forwards, failed to hit a mark but had Dean's other hand twisting his arm in no time for it. He'd likely told it from the twist of his body and dodged; Sam kicked his legs from underneath him, but the older's hold of him didn't let and they both fell down. The taller's knees hit the soft floor with a thud that felt paralyzing in his hip area, but at least Dean was on his back. He leaned forwards, pinned the older down and landed a stinging knee over his stomach, pressed; a soft gasp told him that he'd won.

"Dammit. Let me up. Rematch."

Sam stood up and waited for Dean to pick himself as well. They prepared for a moment and this time Dean dealt the first blow: it hit Sam in the chest, but he countered by grabbing and twisting the man's arm as he spun around, trying to throw him. It failed - Dean slipped free of his grasp and stepped somewhere out of his range, aware of Sam's position but not granting Sam the same luxury.

He won that one by kicking Sam's legs out in the same manner as Sam had won over him, but left the pinning part out - it was enough for him to get the younger on the floor, pressing any part of his body would have threatened to stretch or even tear open the healing injury. Sam accepted that for the victory that it was and stood up again, back aching and breath still recovering from the impact.

"It wasn't wasted," Dean said, ending a seven minutes long silence.

"What wasn't?"

"Your education. I'm glad one of us got it."

"Thanks, I guess. You've never said that out loud."

"I guess I haven't."

Another heavy slap threw Sam's head to the side, and he didn't recover in time to dodge the grip under his shoulder: he lost the ground and then found it with a deafening slam that caused the white in his nothingness to turn to black for a fleeting second, as if he'd somehow lost both his sight _and_ his non-sight from the attack. Air left his lungs and he lay there gasping but nothing went through - his ears were ringing and his back hurt like hell. When he could finally draw breath, it came through as a half-vocal moan.

"Sorry. Got a bit rough."

"Are you trying to kill me?"

He didn't bother getting up. Dean wasn't expecting it - he tackled him from the ground, forced his throbbing, tense body off the floor and planted an elbow into Dean's chest as he fell. His chin knocked against Dean's and he threw his head up, hair sticking to his forehead, and let out a hoarse laughter.

"God, that _hurt_ ," Dean grunted, fingers gripping Sam's wrist to get his arm off of his chest.

"At this rate, one of us will die," Sam panted in return.  
He lifted his arm and fell on the mattresses to rest for a moment.  
"Maybe that's why Dad didn't make us do this."

"Maybe one of us had some sense in his head. But hey, man... at least I can say that you could totally knock out a werewolf blind. I think I broke a rib."

"Oh, so _you're_ hurting?" Sam laughed, palm spread over his aching stomach, "Nice. Here I thought I was the one you just _slammed_ to the floor."

"The wound's still alright?"

"Yeah, and it's probably the only part of me that didn't get destroyed by that throw."

"Geez. Sorry, princess."

They fell quiet for a moment, each just lying there trying to catch his breath: there was a clock on the far end of the room and in the silence its ticking sound carried up to Sam's ears. He brushed his nose and some wetness caught onto his skin - he hoped it wasn't blood.

"You know what I want to do today, Sammy?" Dean asked after a moment.

"Yeah?"

"I wanna get drunk."

"You want to - alright."

"Is that an alright or an _alright_?"

"It's both, I guess."

"Good enough for me."

"Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"Go out. Get drunk with other people. Take a night off."

"And leave you here unattended?"  
Dean's voice sounded both excited and terrified.  
"I can't do that, Sam."

"Yes, you can. I'm fine. I can get from my bedroom to the library and back just fine, I can find the bathroom, I can probably even navigate the fridge for food. I'll survive six hours on my own, a night if you find a girl. I'll be fine, Dean, honestly. And you deserve it."

"Mm. I don't know, Sammy. It's a long time, how am I supposed to have a good time if I worry about you all the time?"

"You don't have to worry, Dean. I'll do just fine. This is my home - I'm alright in here."

"And if you have another nightmare?"

Sam stayed quiet for a moment before sighing.  
"Maybe don't get a girl, then."

"Or bring her in."

"Right, because you'd bring a girl into the fortified bunker of a secret society like any crappy motel we've been to."

Dean chuckled.  
"Okay, maybe not. I think it might scare her off to know I literally live underground."

"Yeah. It might. Or that you literally live underground with your blind brother."

"You make me sound like I'm a basement-dweller, Sam."

"We kind of are."

"But we're Legacies. We _have_ a secret society, Sammy, all to ourselves. It's not exactly the same as - watching porn or playing video games and never moving out of your parents' house."

"And you're gonna tell that to her?"

"Probably not."

Sam let out a small breath when Dean's palm landed over the back of his hand on the mattress; it didn't feel invasive, but it still felt strange. Then it lifted again - he'd just measure the distance between them, the real space that each of them occupied in relation to one another.

"I'd rather go out and get drunk with you," he said then, shrugging: his shrug made a rather loud sound against the rubbery surface of the mattresses, "we could both get us girls and rent rooms for the night."

"I think a girl is the last thing I need right now."

"I don't care. Just come with me, alright? Let's have a night out - pretend that we're a part of society. Watch a game on the TV out with other people, or whatever's on right now - I don't even have to narrate that crap to you, someone gets paid for doing exactly that already. I mean, you're right. I _need_ it. But I can't do it without you, because I won't stop worrying, I _won't_ and you know it. As long as you're still blind, I can't just leave you on your own. Anything could happen."

"Like what, exactly?"

"Sam, just... humour me. One night out. We've earned it."

Sam considered. Then, slowly, he nodded - the mattress pulled at his hair so hard it hurt his scalp.  
"Okay. Let's do it."

"I'll help you pick clothes. But first... we need to find the way out of this room."

 

 

The plan was to get a bus in and a taxi out; Dean wasn't risking the drive, no matter how short it was, between a blind man and a drunken one. The taxi would have to take them to a false address nearby - some secrecy had to be upheld - and judging by the forecast, it would be raining hard when they'd come back. Perhaps it was already: he couldn't tell, not from indoors. No sound carried this far down unless it was the low, loud rumbling of thunder head-on over them.

"Try this one on."

"What is it?"

"A green, blue and brown flannel. Should go with the rest of your wear just fine, plus it looks like it wasn't dug out of a dumpster."

Sam grimaced. He grabbed the shirt that Dean had hung out for him between his hands, pulled it on with little difficulty now that he didn't have to figure out where each of its openings was, and settled to stand in a crouched, awkward manner, head tilted in submission and a somewhat pained expression on his face.  
"I feel ridiculous."

"Because I'm dolling you up?"

A shrug was all the answer that Dean got. He patted the younger on the shoulder and brushed his hair down.  
"You look good, brother. It's just a bar night. I'm gonna be right by your side the whole time, it'll be a smooth one, alright?"

"Right. I just - I haven't been out like this yet. And I've almost gotten used to... you know, it helps to be able to see at least something of a spectrum in light. The bar won't give me that."

"You're worried you'll be full-on blind again."

Another shrug.  
"I guess. I mean, there are people there and I can't defend myself. The way our lives are, that kind of does make me nervous."

"Don't worry. Nobody's gonna come after us in this dive, I promise. Besides, we're not exactly being hunted right now. Nothing's going on. No one _cares_ , Sammy. A couple of beers and we'll be good to head back home, and you'll be one experience better for it."

Sam nodded. Defeat shone from his features but he patched it up quickly, stood up straight and brushed back his hair in the same manner that Dean had done a moment earlier for him; his eyes moved back and forth along the wall that he wasn't seeing, his lips thin with something that he was holding back. Finally he allowed a grimace pass through and turned to face Dean, his eyes aimed a little to the left of him.  
"This should be over by now."

Dean felt a shiver cross his spine.  
"Don't worry about that," he said, shrugging, "It's just taking a bit longer than we expected. It's getting better, though, right?"

Sam tilted his head again, then shook it slowly.  
"I don't know if it is."

"Anyway, Cas will take care of it once he finds his way home."

The taller nodded quietly.

"It'll be alright, Sam, trust me," Dean grimaced in turn and tugged at the other's sleeve, "c'mon - we'll miss our ride."

It was raining outside. Not much but enough to get their shoulders wet before the bus arrived. Dean led Sam up the few stairs inside, paid for them both and landed them on the first available pair of seats, Sam by the window and him on the other side as if to block out the way to Sam like a wall of flesh protecting him from the other passengers. Fifteen minutes later they were back out again, and across the street their destination stood filtered by the rain like in a crime movie: its laid-back green and the brown tint of its windows called Dean in. He patted Sam on the back of his arm to give him the direction, then allowed his hand to slip down to his side again, figuring that now that they were in public the younger would want to show some resemblance of independence despite his condition. He was like that - being led around like a child by the hand wouldn't have gone too well with Sam.

The bar was warm in comparison with the mild, cool weather outside. It wasn't heavily populated, and Dean's eyes picked apart a couple women in their mid-twenties hanging by the bar first before he skimmed about the rest of the patrons inside. None of them appeared threatening, and just as few cared that they'd entered.  
"I'll pick us a table and leave you there. A beer, right?"

"Yeah."

"How about by the TV? There's soccer on, if you're interested."

"Mm. Yeah. Sounds good."

Visibility wasn't what mattered, so Dean dropped Sam right underneath the TV. The sound was turned on low but so was the volume of conversation surrounding them, and right there by the source of it following the commentary wasn't at all difficult.  
"I'll grab the beers and be right back, okay?"

"Yeah. Thanks."

Dean turned around, sliding easily on the smooth floor - at least the place was clean. It didn't smell too bad either, which he'd already noticed when he'd been here before. As far as bars went, this one earned some points with its upkeep for certain. He headed across the floor and between the tables, some occupied and most of them not, towards the barista. Before ordering he made sure to flash a smile towards the ladies sitting at front, and as per usual, he received some right back - his charm hadn't died out yet, and by what he could see in the mirror, the years didn't show on him that harshly yet either. He wouldn't pass for a guy in his late twenties anymore, but most chicks weren't opposed to the charm of an older guy - not to him, not yet. He wasn't out of the game yet, but a part of him had for a very long time now wished he could switch league altogether. Stop playing the bar game and move onto... something a bit steadier, a bit more reliable, a little less temporary.

He made his order with that same smile on his face, eyes aimed towards the barista in a manner he hoped translated as dreamy to the girls still examining him. He flicked a look at them, raised his brows and winked; two turned away, snickering, but one kept looking at him and winked right back. Her hair was straightened and highlighted, sporting fox-brown tips that smoothly turned to blonde and almost white at the root, and her face was oval-shaped in strange contrast to her sharp eyes and a pointy nose. Her lips were slightly uneven, either an illusion provided by hastily applied make-up or, more likely, just a flaw of nature she hadn't covered up; her eyes might have been green or brown, but in the dark it was hard to tell the difference.

"Hey, there."

"Hey."

There was no hesitation in her response and the interest she showed wasn't obscured by anything at all. She wasn't covering it, wasn't hiding it, and Dean felt a sense of disappointment in his chest at knowing that he wouldn't be able to live up to that tonight. It didn't stop him from making conversation, however. He wasn't above friendly chatter.

"Ladies' night out?"

"More of a case of boredom, really."

"Well, better than having your plans ruined by crappy weather."

"You don't look like the kind of a guy who wants to chitchat about weather."

Dean grinned.  
"I'm not, actually."  
The beers slid out in front of him - he paid for them without paying attention to the money he was handling.  
"And you don't look local. Too pretty for a town like this one."

The woman laughed.  
"Nice try. I _am_ local."

"Yeah? Me too."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. So maybe we can hit it up sometime when I don't have a ball chained to my ankle."

"Who's your ball? Your wife?"

"Wow, wow. Wow. No. No, I'm not that kind of a guy. My brother, actually."

"Oh."  
The blonde woman turned around, gazing around for a little while before spotting Sam in one of the tables.  
"The tall one with the hair?"

"Yup, that'd be him."

She turned back and examined Dean in turn, perhaps figuring out which one of them was worth hitting on - or just to find the resemblance. Then she grinned, nodding.  
"Want my number? We could meet up some other time."

"Damn, I'd _love_ to have your number. More so if I got it with a name."

She laughed.  
"Amber. My name's Amber."

"I'm Dean."

 

 

"I can't believe you," Sam huffed, fingers wrapping around the cold, moist surface of the glass Dean had planted in front of him.

"Oh, so you _have_ developed superhuman hearing already?"

"Didn't have to hear much to know what you were up to, Dean."

"Well, what can I say? She's really cute."

"Right. And probably fifteen."

"Uh, no, not really. More like 25."

"Right."

"Right. But hey, if you're jealous, she has two friends with her that don't look too bad either - and it's not like that really matters to you right now."

"No thanks."  
Sam sipped his drink and chuckled, brushing his hair back again as he'd done multiple times over the past five minutes solely from the nervousness that he felt at being exposed in this way. Having Dean by his side made it that much better, and he knew the chances of them being ambushed or even confronted in this place were slim - Dean was right. This wasn't the time or the place for them to need to worry about it.

"Man, we should book tickets to a game. Any game, really. Tired of watching this crap on a flatscreen."

"Yeah," Sam replied, raising his head towards the source of the sound, "That'd be nice."

"If you don't start perking up in a few days, maybe we can just go this way. It won't be the same, I know, but... I think it does you good to be outside. Being outside so far has, anyway."

"I'd love that."

"But seriously... how do you feel? The wound looked really good, it's not even red anymore, just kind of there. I think I can take the stitches out in a few days, actually. So... the poison should be out of your system by now."

"I don't think it's the poison anymore. I think it's more like the damage the poison did. And maybe it's temporary, I don't know. It hasn't changed since the other day. I mean, nothing about it has changed at all. I can still see if the lighting changes and I can kind of make it apart if you walk across some bright light based on that, so I can almost track your movements as long as there are light sources available, but other than that... nothing. It's still grey or white or whatever this could be called. I don't really think it's anything - it's more like it's just nothing and my brain's trying to attach some meaning to it, like a colour or shape or something."

"That sounds trippy as hell, Sam."

"It kind of is. I'm getting used to it, I guess. Knowing it won't be forever even if it _would_ be forever helps, and I don't feel so trapped with it anymore either, but..."  
He downed a long gulp of beer and shuddered.  
"... it's awful, if I'm honest with you. I just want to be back to normal. I want to pick my own clothes, for one."

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess that's one of the things you take for granted."

"I don't get how blind people do this. I don't get how anyone can get through this - knowing it's forever. At least I just have to tough it out for a few days more, but if this was my _life_ , I just... it's not that it's not worth living. It's just that I feel the loss all the time. And I don't feel like I really have the right to, since it's not - it's _not_ forever. I don't have the right to whine about it because - because I have a way out. Most people don't."

"I don't think that's how it goes," Dean huffed, his palm pressing over the back of Sam's hand for a fleeting moment before disappearing.  
It was cool and wet just like Sam's was.  
"I think you have all the right to feel crappy about how it is right now. It's not like it helps you now to know that maybe a month from now you'll be back to normal. You're still screwed today."

"I still feel like crap for whining."

"Whine about it. Maybe it'll make you more tolerable to get it out of your system."

"Yeah, whatever, Dean. God, you're an ass."

"That's what I'm here for, Sammy."

 

 

The rain had picked up when they exited the bar. Dean's vision swayed like he was stuck on an enormously large, heavily rocking boat, but he made it to the car and helped Sam inside without much of an issue. They headed to a roadside nearby the bunker's entrance ("A couple friends gonna pick us up from here, we're off on a road trip!" "Where to?" "Vegas, man. Las frickin' Vegas. The party's not over yet.") and struggled through the muddy strip to the door. For once the hallway greeted them with warmth instead of a rush of cold underground air - Sam stripped off his wet flannel the very moment the door shut behind them, and Dean followed his lead.

He descended the stairs first, if not for anything else then just to make sure that if Sam fell, he'd fall on a soft surface - one of them stood a chance at tumbling down the stairs without dying, and it wasn't the blind and slightly drunk man but rather the guy who'd had way too many shots over the night but still at least had something of a clue where everything was located. And if he'd die providing a landing for his brother, then so it would be; he'd thought he'd die in worse ways before.

Melancholy sat tight in the pit of his stomach when he helped Sam change back into a more comfortable, less wet attire; the other chose to put on his nightwear, and he wasn't wrong, as the time was ticking close to midnight already. Dean didn't bother. The slight wetness over his shoulders and back didn't feel too bad on him, especially not after he found the whiskey under the bedside table, the same they'd used for cleaning Sam's wound before.

"You're still drinking?"  
Sam's voice was slightly concerned and a little more annoyed.

Dean grinned.  
"I'm not done yet."

Truth was, he was bottomless. As much as his world was on a rocky ride through the vastness of the universe surrounding him, it wasn't rocking him enough yet. It didn't take away the gnawing guilt that had somehow made its way back into his body despite the good evening they'd had, that damn regret over everything he'd done years and years ago that by all means he shouldn't have been thinking about at all. There was something about the way Sam behaved with him today that made it raise its head - a sense of avoidance, emotional and physical distance that Dean sensed but couldn't pinpoint. Awkwardness in the way they breathed next to each other, some tension that strangled the older no matter how he tried to adjust.

"Come to the library with me. You're not drunk enough, Sammy, trust me."

"Drunk enough for what?"  
The irritation in Sam's response had traded out for weariness.  
"Dean, man, I'm tired."

"You're tired all the time lately. Come on, I want to spend some more time with you."

"Yeah, because you haven't literally been stuck with me for the past week. Seriously, what's up with you?"

"Nothing, Sam. I just want to be brothers."

"Drunk."

"The best way to go about it."

Sam sighed. Then he shrugged, grimaced and nodded.  
"But not in the library," he uttered through the tension in his jaw, "somewhere we can crash in afterwards. I can't walk the mile back drunk, Dean, and you can't bring me if you can't even stand upright, which seems to be where you're headed."

"Fine. Media room, then. The couch is big enough for two."

"Spells a whole world of neck pain in the morning."

"We'll be hungover anyway. Besides, I could keep watching TV, too."

"Whatever."

"Aw, don't be like that. Smile for me, Sammy."

The taller chuckled and shook his head.  
"Just take me where you need me."

 

 

They both knew what it meant. The sound of the car's engine moved away from the parking lot, leaving them for another week - Dean's heart skipped a beat whenever Sam so much as moved above the pile of books he'd buried himself behind, but he wasn't getting up yet. Summer sunlight leaked in through the clear windows and the once-expensive, luxurious AC whirred at a sluggish pace in the corner of the room, barely affecting the heat that reigned inside the building.

"He's not coming back, is he."

Sam's voice was low, barely ever broke anymore. His shoulders spanned wider than Dean's, his height had charged right past too and every part of him looked grown already. It was easy to take him for an equal now, but not so easy to let go of the feeling of responsibility towards him. Dean shook his head, falling back on the bed with his legs hanging down from the side.

"He never forgets anything, Sam. You know he's not coming back."

Finally the other shifted. His hair was wet with sweat from the front, too long for this weather, but as per usual he refused to have it cut the way it would have been practical. He liked it like that, and now there wasn't much John could do about it anymore. If Sam wanted his hair long, he had it that way. It wasn't worth the fight - worth the escalation. It wasn't about Sam's hair, it was about the teen's independence, his choices, his life, his personality, his right to self-expression. In some ways, Sam couldn't have been more typical for a teenager. Dean envied that spirit in him.

He watched the younger get up from the table and stand with his hands by his side, his flannel caught in the belt of his jeans from one side and reaching up to his thigh on the other. The white shirt underneath was wet with sweat when he turned to look at Dean and exposed it to the bright streak of sunlight.  
"I'm going to take a shower," he announced with a sigh, throwing his shoulders up in something of an angry shrug.

"What are you pissed about now?" Dean asked, turning around and reaching for the bottle of still cold water he'd fetched from the vending machine some minutes earlier, just after helping John load up the last of the bags inside the car.

"Nothing. I'm just tired of being left behind."

"Well, leaves you more time to work on that school stuff you have absolutely no need for."

"Why can't he stay put for a week, Dean?"

"What, you don't want to spend quality time with me?"

Sam grimaced. He brushed his wet hair back and shifted his weight over to his left leg, watching Dean climb up into a sitting position on the bed.

"It's not all bad, Sam. It's not all bad. Speaking of, I think I need a shower too. Mind if I join you?"

The grimace turned into half a smile, then disappeared with another shrug.  
"Do whatever you want."

"Oh, that's what _you'd_ want, isn't it."

"Actually, all I want is for this weather to piss off."

Dean considered.  
"Okay, well, you've got a point there. But c'mon, Sam. Humour me."

Sam watched him for a moment, expressionless, before breaking into a grin and shaking his head. He threw off the loose flannel from his shoulders and then, a little too slowly for it to be casual, pulled off the wet shirt from underneath.  
"I guess you'll just have to find out about the rest."

 

 

Sam wasn't certain where the couch ended anymore. He leaned to the corner of it, Dean's shoulder against his weighting slightly more with each passing moment, and his eyes registered flashes of light in the otherwise greywashed room as the scenery on TV changed. He couldn't say for sure - not with this much alcohol in his system, not this tired, not this out of it, not with nausea rising up somewhere inside him like a slow-building flood - but each flash felt as if he could see it a little more clearly, and it was almost as if he could read the outline of the TV when the light was low on the screen and the brightly lit square didn't smudge it with an extra halo.

Every now and then Dean, now perfectly nuzzled against Sam's side, raised the bottle to his lips and downed a little more, each gulp bringing him closer to a blackout. He'd be throwing up in the morning and Sam had told him as much, but he hadn't so much as grunted a response. It didn't seem to matter. His body was heavy and relaxed and warm, but there was a tension in his aura, a stillness; Sam couldn't tell what it was about, but every passing second seemed to bring them closer to some kind of closure, and that was part of the reason that Sam hadn't cut his brother's drinking short. Maybe, just maybe, the words would come if only he was drunk enough to spell them without fear.

"What was that dream you had last night about?"

Dean's voice was as smudged as the vision of the TV in front of them, barely forming real words at all. Sam reacted to it with a twitch and a grunt of discomfort.

"What's it to you?"

"Nothing. You just never said."

"And I usually tell you?"

"No. I'm just curious."

"Rainbows and puppies with fluffy wings."

Their hands joined. Sam didn't pull his out.

"Talk to me, Sam."

"You're too drunk to listen."

"Says the guy who slurs so bad it hurts my ears."

"Fine."

"Fine. Tell me."

"Tell you what?"

"Anything."

The screen flickered. Sam leaned his head back and listened to the monotonous voice echoing through the speakers, too tired to make sense of the words spoken.  
"Why don't you do it instead?" he asked then, fingers bending around Dean's hand as if to imply a hold but not really taking it.

"Do what?"

Sam chuckled dryly and closed his eyes. His ears conjured up a muffled, soft white noise to accompany the silence that suddenly took over the room, and when he opened his eyes again, the white that greeted him no longer flickered. Dean dropped the remote on the couch next to them, Sam could tell apart the sound of it almost too clearly from within the silence.  
"What exactly did you flip about the other night?"

"I've told you a million times, I'm not going to talk about it."

"But you want to."

"So what?"

"So - maybe you should."

"I can't, Sam. I can't talk about it."

"Why not?"

"Because we don't talk about that. Ever."

The younger shifted, turned his body a little towards Dean, who moved off of him and disappeared across a safe distance. He took his hand with him, leaving Sam's palm feeling sweaty and cold.  
"Dean..."

The name was followed by a silence that stretched on forever; Sam turned back and tried to relax with an uncomfortable weight in his chest, feeling as if the couch underneath them was swaying softly. Then, when there was no sound to prove him that the other was still even awake, he reached out his hand to press against Dean's shoulder, but nothing happened.  
"God, don't fall asleep on me, Dean. Not now."

Dean let out a disgruntled sound and slapped his arm aside.  
"I'm not. I'm not falling asleep. Sam, I can't talk about it. And maybe I want to, maybe there's some _part_ of me that wants to, but I can't do it. Not now. Maybe I could have a long time ago, but not today. I can't drag it up. I can't do that to us."

The silence returned - Sam didn't know how to cut it. He was relieved to hear Dean draw breath again, but no words followed; eventually the other sighed and, by the sound of it, shook his head slowly.

"I'm sorry for everything, Sam. Everything I've done to you, what I did to you before, what I've - I'm sorry. I'm sorry I can't take it back."

"Dean..."

"I'm sorry."

"Me, too."

"You don't get to be sorry about things you haven't done, Sam."

"Like what? I've done a whole lot of things I'm sorry for. _You_ don't get to take that from me."

"You know what I'm talking about. God, if you don't know what I'm talking about by now then there's no reason for me to even keep talking, and you wasted your chance."

Sam swallowed. He shifted again, pulled up his knees to his chest and then slid one leg back straight ahead of him, following the form of the L-shaped couch turning from his corner onwards. To his left, Dean remained silent - so silent Sam wondered if he was even breathing.

"You did _nothing_ to me," Dean pressed, "and I did a whole lot of things to you. A lot of things you don't sorry your ass out of. And still, I'm sorry, even though it doesn't change anything. I just - I'm scared, Sam. Scared of how things are right now."

The older took a long gulp out of the bottle and Sam heard him choke on it.

"I'm scared of myself."

"Dean, you don't -"

" _Don't_. Sam, don't. Don't talk over me now."

Slowly, Sam nodded. He wasn't sure if Dean could see it, if there was any light left in the room, but it didn't matter. His chest ached and he reached across the space between them, fingers spreading over Dean's and the shape of the bottle he was holding. Unwillingly, the other's grip of it let go and Sam took it for himself, downing a long gulp.  
"Alright."

He handed the bottle back and shuddered as the alcohol burned his throat, but not to the feel of it; rather, it was the situation that made him shiver, the words he'd prompted but wasn't sure if he was ready to hear after all. This was it. If they'd ever talk of it, they would do it now. Yet Dean was now saying nothing: Sam could feel him organize his misty thoughts through the blur of alcohol, and he regretted ever cutting him off in the first place. If Dean wouldn't find the words, he'd need to, and even then the other could decline to address the issue further. He swallowed and closed his eyes again, praying, but to no power in particular. There was no power to address on this matter. They were on their own.

"You know what scares me?" Dean finally started over, but Sam didn't say anything - he'd been told to be quiet, and he wasn't risking it again.  
"What really, really gets under my skin?"

Silence.

"I don't want to leave your bedroom anymore. I don't want to stop doing this. I don't want to. I know that's a sign that I have to, but I don't want to, Sam, and you don't want to, and _that_ scares me more than I scare myself."

Sam cleared his throat, unsure if it was to announce he was going to speak or just to feel less sick.  
"Can I speak now?"  
He could feel Dean move across the couch, curl up further away from him at the opposite end of it.

"Shoot."

"You want to know what my nightmare was about?"

"No. I don't. But you're going to tell me anyway, so give me back the bottle."

Sam handed it across the couch and leaned his head down against his hand, feeling his hair shift to close him away from Dean. Right now he hoped, almost believed, that the lights were off and neither of them had to face one another.  
"You're not the only one who feels like that. Like this - like we're getting close to a line we shouldn't cross."  
He swallowed thickly and moved his free hand aimlessly over his lap, grimacing before running his palm over his face and gasping for air.  
"And I'm glad you're thinking it too. I'm glad you're - I'm glad I'm not - I'm not just imagining it."

"Alright."

"Right."

"So, what now? What now, Sam? What did you want to talk about? We're both scared. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

"Don't talk to me like I'm enjoying this, Dean."

"Well, maybe you are. I don't know. I don't want to talk about it but you're pushing it, you've been pushing it for days, I don't want to think about it but you're forcing me to - what more do you want? I already told you, an apology won't fix what I did to you. Nothing will."

"What you did to me?" Sam repeated, finally catching up to what bothered him in Dean's half-addressings, "What _did_ you do to me?"

There was a long silence during which Dean drank more, wiped his mouth and let out a shivering gasp.  
"Nothing. It's nothing."

Sam listened to him move, and by the struggle that followed he assumed Dean had tried to get up from the couch, perhaps to walk away entirely. He grimaced, turned and reached to touch the man on his arm, and the movement struck him with an intense wave of sickness that doubled him right over and into a gag.

"Sam - shit - don't throw up on the couch. Jesus. Are you alright?"

"I'm - ugh."

There was a pair of hands gripping him by his shoulders for one moment, and in another there was one off to wipe aside his hair from his face, tucking it behind his ears and then pressing against his bearded cheek.  
"Sam? Sam, you hear me, right?"

"I hear you."

"God. You shouldn't have drank this crap. Not with the pills."

"Dean, I'm _fine._ "  
Sam felt cold and wet all over when he undid his crouched pose, another grimace on him. Dean's hand slid back over his shoulder and held him up and he leaned into it ever so slightly to make the dizzying rocking halt.  
"I'm fine. It's nothing."  
He shivered and gripped the older's wrist, holding onto it as he breathed in deep to settle the nausea.  
"I'm alright."

"You sure?"

"I'm sure. Ugh. Dean, listen -"

"No, it's over. We're done with this talk. You can't sleep on the couch, so I'm going to take you back to your bedroom, and I'm gonna stay there no matter what to make sure that you won't choke on your own vomit."

"You're the best to talk. You can't even get up from the couch."

"Oh - come on, Sammy, I'm fine. I've had time to perfect my drunk mobility. Once I'm up, I stay up, just you watch."


	11. Bruising

Dean helped Sam into the bed: it was harder than he'd expected, and as a result he had to roll over to his own side over the taller's tangled-up shape on the bed simply because Sam had dragged him down right along with him. He battled a wave of nausea that crashed into him at the way his world was somersaulting, but it settled soon enough, allowing him to undress; he kicked off his jeans and left on the worn Led Zeppelin shirt and the pair of boxers he'd slipped into that morning. He felt hot even in them but there was no way in hell he was undressing a single layer more, so that was what it was going to be; nervously, with his horizon trembling, he turned to put off the lights and as darkness took over, his balance failed him and landed his face over Sam's arm.

The younger let out a grunt as Dean struggled to retreat again.

"Hey, Dean."

"Yeah?"

"I'm glad you... I'm glad you talked."

"Good. Now shut up and don't ever bring it up again."

"I just - I need to say this. And then I won't, I promise, I won't talk about it again."

"For fuck's sake, Sam."

"You're... you're scared, and I get it. I get it, Dean. I'm scared, too. I'm scared of what I want and - and what I feel like I _need_. But I don't - I don't think - I don't think the things I..."  
Sam fell quiet for a moment, and Dean, despite the darkness, could clearly see the frown on his drunken features - he'd seen it so many times before it was impossible not to imagine now. He knew it was there.  
"I don't think... it's wrong, to want some of the things I want."

"Sam -"

"Not everything is - it doesn't have to be wrong."

"Sam, don't -"

"Dean."

Dean swallowed. He closed his eyes, praying that this would end; that he could take the subject back altogether, but he'd made his bed and now he was being thrown into it.

"Dean, who the hell else we've got?"

"I can't do it again, Sam. I can't."

"I'm not - I'm not talking about - God, Dean, _no._ I'm not talking about what you think I'm talking about. I don't want _that_. But it's not wrong to want to be close to someone you love, is it? So I just - I want to be close to you, and we haven't... there hasn't been a way in... in years. It's like we're scared that if we so much as touch each other it'll... and it's not true. It's _not true._ "

"Sam. Sam, stop. You need to stop. I don't want to - I'm not listening to this. I'm not going to hurt you again, ever again."

"It's not about - you're still not getting what I'm talking about. And now you're opening up a whole new... I can't - I can't say this sober, but I can't find the right words when I'm drunk. Listen, please, Dean. I just want - I want a hug every now and then, you know? I'm not talking about anything... I just... I just want to be touched, and you're the only one around here who - whom I can trust enough. But you never do, you stay twelve feet from me at all times, like breathing towards me would break something. You haven't hurt me. It wouldn't hurt me. Maybe, for once, it'd make me feel better."

There was a pause while Dean tried to untangle his throat; it felt like some solid stone had slipped into the middle of it, forming a knot he couldn't swallow or breathe through. When it passed, it hurt so much it raised tears in his eyes.  
"A hug, huh?" he laughed, his whole body trembling with fear, "A freaking hug. All this time you were - you were talking about a hug."

"Don't make fun of me, Dean. Just... don't do that now. Not now."

"No, it's just... it's funny. It's fucking funny."  
The older turned on his side and reached around Sam's body, taking a hold of him and pulling him closer.  
"Come on, then."

To his surprise the whole mass of his brother slid against him so smoothly it seemed like the most natural thing in the world. He held Sam tighter for a moment before his hand escaped up into his hair instead, brushing through the multitudes of soft, thick strands at a slow pace.  
"If you throw up on me, just know that I've got your neck right here and I won't hesitate to throw you out by it."

"I don't feel that sick anymore - but I'm really... really damn tired. So... good night, Dean."

The other's voice was muffled by Dean's body, and the feel of it against him made him feel good like a wave that washed over him in an instant. He closed his eyes to that feeling and even though his hair was still standing on end, he didn't feel so terrified anymore. There was something soothing about being like this, about holding Sam; the only thing he could barely believe was that Sam had asked for it. All this time he'd thought this was the last thing the younger could want, and yet...

"Good night, baby brother."

 

 

They'd buried many things over the years, things that hurt, things that brought on such guilt and shame that even thinking of them was enough to set in an anxiety that even the apocalypse had had a hard time matching. But Sam would have been lying if he'd said all of it was bad. There was a reason they'd lived like that for such a long time - a reason that he'd never forgotten, no matter how much he'd liked to pretend that he'd never felt it, lived it, in the first place.

He remembered vividly the August they'd spent alone, rugged and bruised after hunting for the best part of the year and now freshly abandoned by John's solo quest demanding his presence anywhere but with them, the same excuses renewed each week that they expected him back home. He remembered the way Dean's frustration and concern slowly lifted, melted into something like relaxation - he recalled the heat wave, the long days they'd spent on their dragged-together motel beds watching TV, hardly speaking, with warm coke in their dirty glasses and fast food making up what little they ate, their appetites done away by the unforgiving southern sunlight and the lack of exercise, of any proper waste of energy. Sam had been 17, and Dean had given up on treating him like a child; for that month, the six weeks from the end of July to the beginning of September, they'd not only been brothers but friends and then something else altogether.

Later, Jess had always loved the romance cliché of staying in bed for a week, making love at frequent intervals and dropping it only to sleep. She'd loved the sweet abandon of never really getting up at all, the dirty little implications of only wearing the smallest amount of clothing to make up for false decency. Sam had tried to follow up on her desires to indulge, but it was this memory that had held him back from fully providing what she'd needed. He'd lived it before, the stretched hours between rest and the bare basics of awareness, the sweaty touch of a hand gripping him by the hips to hold him still for penetration. He saw himself in the way she bucked into his touch, saw himself as someone else, and when he closed his eyes he could have sworn he could feel Dean's breath by his neck even when that summer was years behind him and the heat of that August had turned for the crisp cold of December, a snow-blinded January.

At first, he'd taken count of how many times they had sex. It was simply something that seemed important at the time, whether he got off two times a week or a single time or, when John was present with them, if it was just a quick handjob while the old man was running errands, when they had a chance to detour on the way back to the motel, or a blowjob if Dean was feeling particularly affectionate - or needy, depending entirely on which of them ended up on his knees at the time. That month had messed up his counts on the very first two days. One had turned to four, four had turned to six, they'd never left the bed for anything but food until the late afternoon of the second day. Even showering had turned to sex, sex and more sex; fumbling touches to demanding grips, those grips into even more. It wasn't a bad memory, and he'd never managed to turn it into one. He'd loved every second of it, the proximity, the affection, the sheer sexual bliss of it. There was something magical about the mess of blankets kicked to the end of the bed, the blaring of a TV to cover up their muffled moans as their hands wandered, sometimes on the skin and sometimes touching flesh, minds easy, trustful, _safe_ for once.

The line between sex and the other things they did blurred just the same with the numbers. One could be napping when the other joined their bodies - Sam remembered being vaguely aware of Dean sliding inside him at least on two different counts, and his throat still closed at the memory of how he'd climbed over his brother's hips and how his hand had known its way around the man's body in a way that could arouse him to full length before he could properly wake up to it at all. He'd sunken over that length, felt it fill him up, and his hips had naturally resumed a rhythm that sometimes that week felt like the only thing they were good for - walking, not so much. Sitting, not so much. It wasn't about pain; Dean had hurt him once, and after that the care he would take was so throughout that it would drive Sam crazy with the lack of delivery in spite of promises. It simply felt strange to move about when he could have been right there, feeling complete with that sickening pressure inside his stomach, some strange combination of lust and fulfillment and an ungodly weight of shame and a feeling of filthiness about him. Dean had joked about it, eyes closed and a post-orgasmic high toning his voice, how they were beyond redemption, done for, headed for hell. The problem was that the burden of it followed Sam everywhere, even to the moments he was overcome with the need to feel it all over again. He'd never forgiven himself for it, yet he hadn't known how to quit it either. That month, he'd felt for a moment like the shadow hadn't followed him at all. Like he'd been so far gone that he'd given up on it, embraced the fact that he was what he was, and Dean's acceptance had been everything he cared about.

It wasn't about the sex. It had never been about the sex. It had definitely not been about the sex when he'd been six years old, his stubby, ice cold fingers crawling about the body of his more developed brother, breath caught in his throat and sickness in his stomach. The way the twelve-year-old Dean had turned from him when he'd been a couple years older, shirt stained with the condemning evidence of an orgasm, choking a sob and pressing his eyes closed to make the memory, the present moment, disappear. It would never leave Sam's memory, the guilt he'd felt for hurting the older and the way he'd started crying, too, and he'd cried until John had found them; found Dean shirtless, cradling his brother with his own face stained with tears. There was no sex for children that young, and what they'd done wasn't about arousal, wasn't about the experience. It was a need, some bottomless pit within them both that drove them back to it every time, a sick desire that stemmed from something much more innocent, a necessity that they failed to find in their lives.

Sam had learned what he could about it when he'd finally been free, but ultimately his freedom had never truly provided him that release he'd been looking for. His past had followed him through his relationship with Jess, from the very first date to the very last time they'd fallen asleep in an embrace, and his regret after her death had been tinted with the guilt of never being able to give her what they both had wanted: a fulfilling, true relationship built on trust and love. They'd loved each other, yes, and Sam had never loved another woman like that since - he'd never had the chance, the heart or the courage to do so. They'd trusted each other, too, but it had always ceased with intimacy. She had to have noticed it, the strange defenses Sam put up especially at the beginning of their relationship. He'd shed some of them, but many had stayed, and one of them was his complete inability to surrender and let go. He needed to feel that control, because every time he let someone else in charge, he was thrown back into the years before he'd left, before he'd torn himself free. And God, he'd never stopped missing the touch of that one person who'd known him from birth - the only person who'd ever provided exactly what he needed, in all the ways that it count. He couldn't risk falling back into that with anyone else. The only way for him to love was not to compare it with what he'd lived before.

 

 

Dean woke up to a crashing sickness flooding over him. He was gagging when he turned around, too close to the edge of the bed: his hand, supposedly reaching for support, met air and sent him right down towards the floor. The only positive in the situation was that after the gag, the first wave had passed, and not even the sudden tilt in his horizon brought him to throwing up - in a matter of seconds he was standing, feet and hands cold and a film of sweat covering him, a throb within his skull and something of a direction set out ahead of him. The frantic beat of his heart drowned out the sound of his bare feet upon the stone floor as he rushed into the corridor and towards the bathroom, but the cool feel of it against the soles of his feet had a calming effect on his tortured body and by the time he reached the bathroom, the nausea had settled. Instead of bending over the toilet seat, Dean leaned his hands onto the sink, slammed it on pouring cold water into the basin, and after staring blankly into the flow for a moment making sure the acid wasn't about to climb back up his throat he cupped as much water between his palms as he could and washed his sweaty face with it.

He had no idea what time it was and his rubbery-feeling body provided no insight to the matter: it could have as well been six in the morning or three in the afternoon, and there was nothing here to set him straight on it. Still trembling, he undressed the sweaty shirt from his form, kicked off his boxers and stepped underneath the shower. Ten minutes later he was out again, cold from the water's temperature but at least somewhat lucid now, and with a towel loosely wrapped around his waist he headed for his own bedroom for a change of clothes.

The bunker echoed as he crossed the corridors, and something about it felt wider, bigger than before when he exited his room minutes later with the towel now thrown over his nude shoulder; his pants hung as loose around his hips as it had done before, and the shirt he carried felt soft and light against his arm but still too constricting to wear until his skin had dried. With his mind as sticky as his body had felt moments earlier, he headed off to bring the laundry into the laundry room - Sam was still asleep when he picked up the pile from his room and wandered off as quietly as he could. His balance wasn't all together yet, and he wondered when he'd gotten so old that a late night could make him feel this sick - he'd grown more and more prone to hangovers the past few years, but this had to be the worst he'd felt in a very long time, longer than he could recall. His mouth tasted like crap even after he'd brushed his teeth, and the less he moved his tongue around the more the sensation seemed to concentrate around it, so he tried to relax his jaws despite the nausea in the hopes of saliva washing out the horror that was about to unleash itself over his palate. Somehow with each step he felt heavier and like the ground was greeting him with a thundering crash out of sheer spite; he left the laundry piled up ready for washing but didn't dare to bend over to fill up the machine. It'd be there later when he'd stopped feeling so much like hell.

The way to the kitchen stretched on for an uncomfortably long while, every turn of the corridors filled with anticipation of another discomfort making its way into Dean's system, but he arrived in a stable enough condition to count his blessings on it. The digital clock on the microwave redeemed him from his timeless existence, showing the time to be just eight minutes over ten in the morning when Dean poured in the water for the coffee maker and filled up the filter with stale grounds. His head weighted a couple pounds more than he was used to when he leaned down against the counter, back bent, and hid his face between his arms: the throbbing in his head was steadily morphing into a proper headache, and coffee would hardly make it better. Yet that was a routine he wasn't about to drop, not for a hangover - and Sam would likely feel better than he did, which was reason enough to have a breakfast on the way for him.

"God. Damn."  
Dean grimaced, pressing his face more firmly against his arm, eyes filling with bright flashing lights and symmetric shapes like within a kaleidoscope.  
"I'm never drinking again."

Slowly, as if stuck in a poorly edited film, Dean's legs gave out underneath him and he slid down onto the floor. He turned around, finally raised the shirt from over his arm and clumsily pulled it over his body before leaning back against the counter: the raspy sounds of the coffee maker sounded comfortingly familiar, yet harsh to his ears and the like an encouragement to the pressure crushing his brain as he steadied himself where he now sat. He shuddered, uncertain if it was from the cold or due to the sheer discomfort he was feeling, but it settled soon enough leaving him feeling vaguely chilly even underneath his clothing. Every inch of him was sweating again, even the soles of his feet were sticky against the floor, but his mind was grasping at the memories from the night and the rising sensation of shame and terror within him outmatched the physical feelings he was battling with. He tried to recall if he'd still had his arms around Sam when he'd woken up, but he couldn't tell for sure; what he did remember was the weight of Sam's arm over his waist, as it had slipped off of him when he'd turned and flung himself out of the bed. He shivered again, uncertain what for; his neck was tense when he bent his head down back into his arms, now wrapped around his knees like in an attempt at hiding him from the world. He could hear the coffee dripping, and knowing there was a time limit to when he would need to get back up and begin the day by dragging Sam up from the bed was both a relief and a source of anxiety for the older.

He couldn't remember what exactly had been said the night before, but the memory of it sat tight at the back of his skull, spreading a whole another sort of nausea into his body. It gripped his chest tight and pushed down his ribcage around his lungs, pressuring out the air within him until he had to gasp for more. They'd never talked about it before, not after he'd come to Stanford, not after they'd left for the quest years and years ago that had taken them all the way to where they now stood. He'd wanted to think there was nothing to talk about - that it was past, and even though he'd done awful things, perhaps there was a chance that they could move past those events and one day live as if they'd never happened. It was clear that it wasn't going to happen; the nightmare still haunted him and it would have been naive to think it didn't plague Sam just the same or worse - likely worse, Dean knew that much. There was no comparing his guilt with the pain he'd caused the younger, and now that it had been dragged back up... could they bury it again? Was that even worth considering? The thought of living under the shadow of it, fearing when it would surface again, scared Dean so much that he forgot the nausea he was feeling and shuddered solely to the horror he felt at facing the day. But what could they do about it? Talk about it? What would talking help when nothing would change what had happened?

Not addressing it had been the only logical thing for Dean. He didn't want to bring Sam the pain of remembering it and his own shame was too hard on him to bear. It had brought him down to places few other things had - he'd held a gun on his lap for hours one night, a night he didn't want to repeat, unable to convince himself fully that he was still entitled to his life after the things he'd done to the one man who meant the whole world to him. He'd never meant to hurt anyone, least of all Sam; what he'd done he'd always done because he'd cared too deeply, because he'd loved and he hadn't known how else to show it. It had slipped down a path he'd never realised he'd been following in the first place before he'd grown old enough to view it ahead of him, and by that point there had been walls surrounding him from all sides, preventing him from changing the course. He'd never wanted for it to end where it had. He'd never wanted to walk it, yet it had brought him inevitably to its end despite of his wishes.

Dean wasn't sure if it was the toxins inside him that pushed the tears to surface or if the sheer weight of the memories was enough to break him, but he didn't hold back the sob that came through - no one was here to see him at his weakest. Perhaps he didn't deserve to cry, being the one to blame for it, being the one who'd caused the pain, but he'd never felt worse for anything in the world. Sam hadn't deserved it. No one deserved it, _no one;_ not even Dean had when it had come down to him in hell, but he couldn't feel like it had been unfair to be torn apart by Alastair, considering what he'd done himself to his own brother. There was no forgiveness for a sin like that, and the pain he'd taken had felt justified - having his own body violated, taken and used, had just seemed like a just punishment. Dean wasn't sure if the demon had known, and he sure as hell had never told, but what was there that the demons hadn't known about them, hadn't known about Sam? It had never come up, but sometimes... sometimes he'd felt like they knew, and that the words they'd spoken... some of them had hit close to home in ways that Dean couldn't convince himself hadn't been intended the way he'd read them. It didn't matter, not for his sake. For Sam's - nobody was supposed to know. Sam didn't deserve the shame for it.

Perhaps he could have lived with the memories of all the other things they'd done. He wasn't sure if he'd always deserved the blame he'd taken upon himself to carry, as most of the time, he could have sworn they both enjoyed what took place between them. Sometimes, he'd almost felt like he was in love - the thought of that secret between them had brought him satisfaction and pleasure even in ways that had nothing to do with the arousal that tinted it through and through. It had never quite been romantic, but the love he'd felt and, frankly, _still_ felt for his brother went above and beyond that which he could understand as normal for an older brother to experience. He didn't know for certain, he'd never been a brother to anyone else, not for real, but sometimes he felt he'd glimpsed that experience with others. With Jo, with Charlie... none of it had come even close to matching what he felt for Sam. He would have killed for those he read as his family, and he'd loved them fiercely, but it was nothing in comparison to the sheer ache he'd only ever experienced with Sam. It consumed him, took him over, drowned him; there was nothing logical about it and there had never been. It was easy to get lost with it, and it was no guide to his actions: if he trusted it, all the choices he made turned out sour one way or another. And that was exactly what had driven him that night - he'd assumed, he hadn't listened, and his will to do good by the other had blinded him entirely. The force behind his actions now seemed like such an irony in contrast to the act he'd committed.

He'd thought they were on the same wavelength. He'd thought they'd never been closer than that.

 

 

"Sammy."

Waking up seemed difficult. Sam's eyes felt sticky and opening them was difficult, but for the first time in over a week he could now tell apart the difference between having them closed and having them open. His horizon was full of gentle light once he'd wrestled himself to a state of awareness, and Dean's hand rested over his wrist, his weight settled beside Sam on the bed. By the sound of his breathing and the feel of his aura about him, he was smiling.

"There's coffee in the kitchen if you want some."

Sam turned to cover a yawn.  
"You stink."

"Wow. Thanks, Sam. How're you feeling?"

Sam chuckled, shaking his head.  
"Better than I thought I would by far," he said.

"Sheesh. I feel like seven hells."

Dean's hand wrapped around Sam's and he slid off the bed, tugging the younger up with him. Sam complied stiffly, the throbbing in his head worsening for a moment as blood relocated within his body.

"Not even a headache?" Dean asked him as if sensing that from him.

Sam's lips twisted into a crooked, defeated smile.  
"A small one."

"Fine. I can live with that. Anyway, I ate some bacon and you should, too. It really does help."

"I'll think about it."

He wouldn't. Sam followed Dean out the bedroom door, the tip of his tongue phrasing out the sentence to explain how much better his vision was today: the shades of light were so easy to tell apart that he couldn't stop trying to find Dean from the mist. If he'd walk over a source of light... Sam just might be able to tell his shape from it. That was only one step away from sight, and the promise of an end to this period in his life seemed like a miracle waiting to happen. In the end he swallowed all the beginnings and the ends and followed the other into the kitchen quietly but with a small smile on his face instead. Once they stopped, he reached out his hand along the arm of Dean's and found his shoulder; Dean turned his head to face him, his jaw pressing softly over Sam's hand before moving back out of reach. The younger held tighter for a moment.

"What?" Dean asked, his voice half-defensive, half-curious.

"Thank you for sticking through this with me."

"What?" Dean repeated, his voice disbelieving but touched this time - he tried hard to cover up the latter.  
"Pfft. 'Course I stuck with you. What did you think I was gonna do, throw you out? I'm gonna be here right to the end, and then some. You know I will."

"Yeah. But - thank you. Thank you for that. Thank you for sticking around. For being a brother. For - for everything."

"Stop thanking me, the moment's over. Now you're just making me uncomfortable."

Sam rolled his eyes and let his hand down. Dean's hand brushed against his before the man reached for two cups and filled them both: he handed one to Sam like every morning, but doing it in the kitchen added an extra layer of responsibility. This way, he'd have to make it back to the library without spilling it over his hands. For a moment they just stood there, both sensing that something had gone wrong, but then Dean seemed to realise what he'd done and he picked the cup back from Sam.  
"That was stupid," he huffed, "Follow up. Hold onto my shirt or whatever rocks your boat, and don't get lost."

"I think I'll manage, thanks."

It felt ridiculous to hold onto the hem of the other's shirt, but without it, Sam knew he would have had a much harder time following Dean than without any assistance. He was almost alright with it by then, with needing what he could have - it wasn't shameful anymore, simply bothersome, and the promise of the end lingering only that far out of his reach made it easier still.  
"It won't be long anymore," he uttered when he felt the library open around them.

"Yeah? You think?"

Sam nodded with a small sound accompanying the gesture.  
"I _know_. It's a lot better today."

Dean halted, slowly enough to alert Sam to it before their bodies crashed together. Sam took a step back to ensure it wouldn't happen, but he was smiling and he could feel Dean look back at him.  
"You serious?"

"Absolutely."

"How much better?"

"A lot better. I can - it's easy to tell when we're in a room and when we're in a corridor. It's almost like just having a thin cloth over my eyes."

"Wow."  
They were moving again, and Dean led them over to the seats, laid the cups down on the table and helped Sam sit down first.  
"Wow. I... almost forgot it'll be over one day."

"I'm not sure if I ever really trusted it would end, either," Sam admitted, "Today... it's different."

"Finally."

Slowly, Sam nodded.  
"Dean, I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For the work I've put you through for this."

"I already told you, you're on breakfast duty from hereon to next millenia."

"Yeah. And I will be, gladly, you've done more than your share."

Dean sat down - this time, he seated himself right next to Sam, something he hadn't yet done, not for years, not for as long as Sam could remember. They'd always sat opposite of each other unless someone else was facing them from the other side - unless they were working as a unit.  
"In all fairness, Sam, I'm your brother. Who else would do this for you?"

"It doesn't mean you don't deserve the credit for it, Dean."

To Sam's surprise, Dean agreed - the sound that left him was thoughtful, considering.  
"I guess. Thanks, Sam."  
He let out a short laughter as if to chase away the seriousness from between them, perhaps scared of facing the just credit he'd barely accepted.

"How about that bacon?"

"Oh, God. _Fine._ "

"Good choice."

 

 

The first half of the day passed them by much like many of the previous ones: Sam kept up trying to reach a breakthrough with his braille studies, and Dean scrolled through a meaningless crapton of websites, articles, email and the occasional bit of lore he had to forward to any one of the contacts who'd reached out for him. When there was nothing more to be done, however, he cut it off by reaching for and placing his phone between them on the table: the sound wasn't enough to alert Sam, but the next words would be.

"I'm going to call Cas again. Let's see if he picks up. Wanna join in?"

Sam lifted his head slowly, then nodded with a hint of a smile on him.  
"Yeah, sure."

Dean nodded absently, already seeking through the contacts for the angel's number. He set up the call and the speaker and leaned over the phone to wait. They both seemed to hold their breaths for a much longer while than should have been necessary - Dean was prepared to end the call any second when Castiel finally picked up.

"Dean," he called for a greeting, "I'm sorry, I couldn't pick up right away. Are you still there?"

"Yeah," Dean confirmed, "And Sammy's here too. You're on speaker."

"Sam."

"Hey, Cas. How's it going?"

The angel hesitated for a moment - when he spoke, his voice was hesitant.  
"I'm sorry I've been delayed," he began, "I'm afraid it... will have to be a little longer still. Forgive me."

Dean's heart sunk, but he shook his head and swallowed the disappointment. Castiel's presence would have taken off the weight from his shoulders, the pressure of waiting whether or not the topic from last night would surface again, but on the other hand, perhaps now was not the time for his visit. There were unspoken things between the brothers that would have to be lived through first - Dean hoped to hell and back that addressing them would not be necessary, but he feared it might yet come to that. He grimaced when he spoke.  
"It's okay, Cas. We'll be here when you get here, promise. Besides - Sam claims he's getting better."

"Yeah, I am," Sam confirmed, chuckling softly.  
"It's not an emergency anymore, Cas, don't worry about me."

The angel sighed and relief was audible in his voice.  
"I am glad to hear that. It makes me feel a lot better. But I still - I should be there with you more often, and I'll do my best to change that once this chase is over."

"You doing okay, Cas?"

"I'm not in danger, if that's what you mean."

"Good. That's... I'm glad, Cas."

"Yeah," Sam added, "What we really want is that when you do come back, you come back in one piece. So take care, alright?"

"I will. Thank you. I hope that... once I can, I can come back for a longer while. We could go to movies."

Dean snorted.  
"Yeah, we'll do that, Cas."

"I have to go - it's good to hear your voices. Dean, Sam. I'll try to call you again later, if that is alright with you."

"Sure," Dean replied, the weight in his chest leaning heavier over his heart again, "I'll keep my phone at hand."

"Thank you. Goodbye, Dean."

"Bye, Cas."

"Sam."

"Yeah?"

"Goodbye to you as well. It's good to hear that you're recovering - it means much to me to know that you are well, and I'm sure you feel even better."

Sam smiled.  
"I'm not in any trouble, Cas. We'll see soon enough, alright?"

"As soon as I can, I promise."

"Bye, Cas."

Dean swiped the screen to end the call and slid back into his chair.  
"Man, I miss the guy."

"Me, too."


	12. Burning Bridges

Sam didn't know how to speak up on it, not even how to steer the barely upheld conversation in the right direction. Yet with each passing moment he could feel the topic sliding further out of reach, and knowing it would be even harder to bring back up once it would be gone was scary to him: it could have taken another ten years, or maybe it would never come to this again. They were standing at a crossroads that they both feared taking a path from, but it was time to do so - Sam didn't want to follow up with the path they'd chosen on the first hunt they'd shared together in 2005 and which they'd struggled to follow ever since. But what were his choices? Slowly, he was almost certain he was finally figuring it out - that inside him somewhere, a picture was forming, a plan, a desire for change.

"Dean?" he called, decisive to at least buy them the opportunity.

"Yeah?"

"It's still raining, right?"

"Yeah, according to the forecast it is. It's not like I've stuck my head out the door today."

Sam nodded.  
"You wanna take me for a walk?"

"Sam, I just said it was raining. What part of that went over your head?"

"The part that said we can't go out, and umbrellas don't exist."

"To be honest, Sam, I'm not sure we have a single umbrella. We just tend to run very fast when it's raining."

The younger laughed.  
"You're right. Well, how about just - take me out the door, let me get some fresh air."

Dean sighed. Then, slowly, he picked himself up from his seat and took Sam's hand in his.  
"Alright, then. Freak."

"It'll do you good, too."

"I'll remember that when I have a cold and you're the one responsible for it, Sammy."

Sam followed Dean across the hall and up the stairs; it was as difficult as he'd remembered, but once they reached the upper level, he felt confident he'd made the right choice. This would bring them in a situation with no distractions available to take either's attention from the subject he wanted to approach - it would hopefully press him to talk about it, too.  
The world outside opened exactly as expected with rain peltering down at the ground from far up high. Moisture lingered in the air even where the drops couldn't reach as a fine wet mist, and small drops from every exploding larger one reached up to Sam right away from the very moment he stepped into the doorway. He breathed in and when Dean tried to part their hands, he held a little bit tighter. There was no struggle: the older simply relaxed his hand again and left it hanging joined with Sam's. Sam could feel no hesitation in his hold, no discomfort and no tension, and it made him feel a little bit more at ease about what would have to follow.

"We need to talk," he stated then, the weight of his words causing the other's hold to tighten for a flash.

To his surprise, Dean responded calmly and without argument.  
"Alright."

Now, finally, Sam allowed their hands to part: Dean's finger trailed over his when the hold faded, then vanished, but Sam could still feel him by his side and he knew approximately where he stood. Rain had found its way to their weak shelter, and water was occasionally dripping into Sam's hair. He breathed in the fresh air and felt it charge into his veins, bringing clarity into his mind that still often felt dragged down by the lack of vision to keep him alert: it felt like constantly being tied up somehow, but even now in this uniform shade of grey he knew it wouldn't be forever, and that thought gave him strength. With the return of his sight, his chance to address this from the ground they now stood upon would be gone for good.

"I think - we need to change, Dean."  
The words slipped into the stillness of the white noise surrounding them, and Dean stayed still and quiet where he stood. Sam hadn't expected anything else - he'd agreed to this conversation, but it didn't mean he was actively able to participate. The responsibility for presentation lay solely upon Sam's shoulders, and he'd already accepted that.  
"Firstly... we can't - we can't keep pretending that it's straightforward. That anything about us is... or ever was."

"Right."

"It's not a conversation we can just have, but for the first time in forever, I felt relieved yesterday when we - we stopped, for a minute, acting like nothing ever happened. It's holding us back, it gets between us, whatever we do it'll never go away. We both know that. I know that talking about it... I don't want to do it any more than you do. But I think... for things to be better, for things to really... for us to move past it, for real, we need to talk about it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not this month and maybe it'll take forever to do it, but one day, we'll have to do it. I want to be brothers, Dean, but I don't think we can - that we can really be honest with each other if we never address what... what happened."

It could have started out better. There was no way he could even say out loud what _it_ was, not even now, but they'd never before addressed the subject even this directly. They'd hardly done so when it had been a reality that they lived - there had barely ever been words that could reveal them for what they were.

"Another thing," he carried on, breathless from anxiety and stress that built up the longer Dean stayed quiet beside him, just listening, not giving him any indicators of what he was thinking, feeling.  
"You keep saying things like - like you were some sort of a - like you're convinced that you did something to me. That you're responsible for it. Maybe you think that, I don't know. The first thing I want to say is that you never... you didn't do anything to me, Dean."

"Bullshit."

Sam swallowed.

"That's bullshit, Sam, and you know that," Dean continued, his voice rough and raw to a point where it had to taste of blood in his mouth.

A drop of water ran down through Sam's hair and down his neck. He shook his head, feeling it disappear and get sucked in by the fabric of his shirt.  
"It's not bullshit. It's not that simple, Dean, it never was. I don't know - I shouldn't be surprised that you blame yourself for it. But like I said, it isn't that straightforward. What happened... wasn't."

"Okay."  
Dean shifted. He turned towards Sam, but Sam couldn't tell his expression or even what his tone was - it sounded decisive, defiant, but at once there was a clear shade of pain in it, and that masked away the rest of what it could have held in it, the real hints that Sam needed to hear to know what Dean was really feeling beyond the hurt.  
"Look, Sam, you wanna have this conversation. You want to drag up the shit that we went through as kids and maybe you're right, maybe that's something that needs to be addressed. But before we can start talking about it, you need to stop pretending like this is diplomatic, because it ain't. I took care of you, hell, I practically raised you. You were _my responsibility._ And I used that - I used _you_ \- I took advantage of it, and I hurt you. It really is that simple. So if you want to talk about it, fine. Good for you. But I don't have that kind of a foothold in here. It's not about me or what happened to me, it's about what I did to you, and I'll listen, because what the hell else can I do? Just don't expect me to share in on it, because I'm not a victim. I'm a fucking monster. That's it."

There was a silence following those words, a silence during which Sam could have given anything to have Dean look away from him, for the certainty that the other was doing so. He raised his head as if to stare at the horizon somewhere ahead, with the wind blowing rain over his face and into his open eyes until he blinked the water away. His breath was barely running now, every inhale as if it was caught in a web somewhere on the way down.

"So you think I'm a victim, Dean?" he asked quietly.

He heard Dean shift - twitch, perhaps - but he still couldn't tell where he was looking, what he was doing, or how he was reacting to it. It burned his chest and made him feel angry at himself for reasons he couldn't completely pin down. Was he disappointed that they both needed him to be disabled for this conversation to take place? Was it something else, was it simple frustration at the limitations of his condition? He couldn't tell, and the anger soon subsided into an ache instead.

"That... sounded better in my head," the other grudgingly admitted.  
He seemed ashamed, knowing he'd said something wrong, but Sam wasn't sure if he knew how else he could have phrased it.

"You're not a monster, Dean."  
The words were softer than the challenge he'd thrown out earlier, anger and pain both missing from the tone.  
"You never were. What we did - I wanted it, too. You know that as well as I do."

"You were just a kid, Sam. A kid can't consent."

"So what does that make you? If I was a kid - what were you at ten when Dad left us alone, put you in charge? Were you any less a kid when I was the one who took the lead? Does that make _me_ any less a kid? Dean, you can't blame yourself for what we did."

"I was meant to protect you. I didn't. Not from myself."

"Just like Dad didn't protect you from _me_."

Dean's breath hitched; for a moment he sounded as if he was about to say something, but at the end the words escaped him as a trembling, quiet sigh that merged with the sound of the rain and disappeared.  
"I can't do this, Sam," he finally uttered instead, and Sam knew he had tears in his eyes or even on his face from just the way his voice sounded so fragile and weak.  
"I just - I can't do this. I'm sorry."

Sam jumped to the feel of the older's hand grasping his, but he settled into the touch soon enough and though his chest hurt at the speed his heart had skipped into, even that rhythm began calming down in a matter of seconds.

"Come back inside, Sam. I'll cook us something for dinner."

The younger felt choked when he nodded.  
"Okay. Dean, I'm sorry, too."

"It's okay, Sam. I'm... glad you tried. I just... I can't. I just - I can't."

"It's okay. I - I get it."

 

 

The weight of the conversation followed Dean down, and it was a relief to be back in the kitchen to escape Sam's presence if not the shadow of what he'd brought up. A bit of something solid was caught inside Dean's throat as he prepared the mac and cheese - home made, not the Kraft kind - and tried his best not to think of anything at all. He moved the kettle around, made sure nothing was burning, and forced his mind to fill with nothing but the sight and sound and scent of the food he was preparing. As if unwilling to give in, his shoulders lightened only an ounce at a time, allowing his posture to grow back to full; he lifted his chin and breathed in deep as the pasta boiled on the stove.  
Unlike the weight, the constricting sensation around his chest wasn't letting go. His knuckles rubbed absently at his sternum, trying to relieve the discomfort stemming from within, but it wasn't because of tension in his muscles, it was simply due to the anxiety that gripped him no matter how hard he was trying to not think back to the source of it. What could he say to Sam? Sam didn't want to think of himself as a victim and Dean had been an idiot for implying it. He knew how much the man needed the comfort of knowing that he was in control, and it made sense that he wanted to believe he'd been in control in this as well - that Dean hadn't used him, because accepting it would have hurt him in ways he rather didn't experience. But it was obvious, wasn't it? Dean saw it, and he couldn't believe that Sam didn't. It wasn't possible, because there was no other way to interpret their circumstances. He'd been the caretaker, and he'd failed it. He'd never done anything to Sam on purpose, he'd never intended to hurt him, but what he'd done was unforgivable. And none of that, none of their conversations so far, had even remotely touched the memory that pained Dean the worst.

_"Stop. Dean - stop, please, please stop."_

The stubble over Dean's jaw felt raw against his fingertips. He'd shaved, but it was growing back quickly enough; tomorrow there'd be half a beard again. He'd barely grown anything back when all of this had happened. With a shaking hand he stirred the food and took it off the stove, leaving it sitting there, settling; he felt nauseous and cold, and it wasn't because of the rain he'd caught while they'd stood outside.

Then, so suddenly he barely caught the impulse before it took over him, he grabbed the kettle and threw it across the room: it hit the wall on the other side with a loud bang and Dean could see the edge turn inwards as the food spilled out and covered everything, the wall and the floor over which the dish fell on. His own hiss alerted him to the throbbing burn over the side of his hand - he wasn't sure what had caused it, but it was turning to a blister already.

Starting over would be a relief. Cleaning up just made him feel worse.

 

 

"Here's your dinner, Sammy."

The plate slid in front of Sam - the scent was delicious, but his appetite was as good as gone. He didn't make a mention of the noise he'd heard even though it had made him jump out of his chair, scared; it was easy enough to know what had happened, and he'd realised it before he'd even stood in full height. Dean's voice was weary but warm and grateful when Sam thanked him for the food and nothing more, giving a response in a small approving sound instead of any words. His own plate hit the wooden surface on the opposite side of the table from Sam, and for some five minutes neither of them said anything. Mac and cheese was not the kind of food that Sam would have picked for himself, but once upon a time, it had made up some eighty percent of his diet. Even more curiously, there had been a lengthy period when it hadn't just been mac and cheese, but mac and cheese with carrot and strawberry jam. The very thought made him grimace now.

"What, you don't like it?" Dean asked, and it took Sam a moment to remember that there was absolutely nothing wrong with his eyes even though Sam himself wouldn't have been able to tell his expression even if he'd tried.

"No - no, it's really good, actually. You made it from scratch, didn't you?"

"Yeah. I mean, I thought it was great."

"It _is_ great. Sorry, I just - I was," Sam's sentence was cut off by a tired laughter, "I was thinking about the carrot and jam version."

"Man, your palate used to be so messed up."

"Tell me about it. But hey, _you_ cooked up that monstrosity."

"Yeah, but only because you loved it."

Sam nodded.  
"I did, didn't I."  
He listened to Dean scrape through the bottom of his plate and eat - he'd paused himself, even though he still had the appetite for the food. It was delicious, even for the lack of real nutrients.

"It wasn't all bad, right?" Dean asked then, his voice insecure again, "Being a kid."

"No. No, it wasn't," Sam admitted earnestly, immediately aware of the subject changing back towards what they'd discussed before.  
He wondered if throwing that kettle into a wall had made Dean feel any better; at least it had given them some time to think.  
"Most the time, I was happy enough, I guess. With you, I didn't really lack much."

"Except everything, really."

"No, I mean it, Dean. A kid needs certain things in life, like stability, safety, affection; obviously we had none of that, but with you, I felt like I did. And I just... you were never that lucky. You just had me and the hope that Dad would come and save you if anything went wrong, but he wasn't even there for most the time, so you just -"

"I had a gun."

"Yeah, you had a gun. That about sums up what a messed up life we lived."

"It's not exactly over yet, Sam."

"No, but it's better."  
Sam filled up his mouth with a spoonful of macaroni and chewed through waiting for Dean to say something. He didn't.  
"You did the best you could with me," he added then, "and all things considered, I think you did a good job at it. I just - I wish you'd had something for yourself, too."

"Yeah, well, not everyone gets lucky. Besides, I did have something. I had Dad whenever he was home - Bobby for some time when he wasn't. And I had you, even though you were the most annoying kid I ever knew. It wasn't all bad."

There was no reason to disagree; Dean would defend this to death, that he'd never been quite as miserable as he'd really been for most of their childhood. Sam wished he'd realised it earlier, that he could have done something about it, but ultimately the responsibility had never been his, and kids as young as them weren't supposed to take care of each other, not like they had had to.

"I just wish you'd understand it, Dean."

"Understand what?"

"That what you did - was for a reason. And the same reasons apply to me, too. I did what I did for a reason, too."

There was another silence, but neither of them was eating. Then, after a long pause, Dean sighed and laid down his fork.  
"When you dragged us outside," he started then, changing the subject but not quite as far as Sam had feared he would, "You said that we 'need to change'. You never really explained what the hell that was supposed to mean. I mean, I agree, yeah. Sure. Maybe we're not the most functional brothers I've heard of, and maybe there's a lot that we're not doing right. I just want to know if you, you know, have some actual suggestions, or -"

"I do, actually."  
Sam listened to Dean lean back, and when he really concentrated, he could just make apart the outline of him - a blurry, grey mess connecting to the rest of the blurry grey mess that was supposedly the table and the rest of the chairs, lined unevenly against the bright white background of nothing.  
"Firstly - I think you can agree with this if I say that... for the longest time now, we've both tried to pretend that we're just brothers like any other. I don't even mean that we've tried to act like nothing ever happened when we were kids - I'm talking about the rest, too. As if the same rules apply to us that apply to civilians who didn't grow up like we did, who had at least something of a home to come back to, some kind of parents who were around. I mean that the way we were raised, the things we've been through... they change things. They change the relationship we have, they change _us_ , so maybe - maybe it's not the best idea to try and follow up rules that aren't made for people like us."

"Rules like what?"

Sam licked his lips and turned his head down. He pushed his spoon into the remaining, cooling food on his plate and swirled it around before laying it down against the plate's edge.  
"We don't have anyone else, Dean. I don't know if you've noticed, but other people have relationships outside of their siblings, and - we don't."

"Okay. I have friends, but whatever."

"Well, I don't."

"You don't? What's Cas to you, then?"

"Where _is_ Cas? He is a friend - but he's not here. He's never here. I love him, I do, and whenever he's around I'm _happy_ \- but the truth is, it's not enough. One person you see once in a blue moon, Dean, that's not enough. We don't really talk to _anyone_ who isn't us, we don't have coworkers, casual friends, we don't even talk to cashiers; we're stuck _together_. Moreover, we don't have relationships. We've tried, they didn't work out. People died. A lot of people who didn't need to die or suffer did because they got involved with us. So we just - we just gave up."

Dean didn't argue, and Sam was glad about it.

"And this applies to Cas, too, but - Dean, Cas gets it. He needed to learn it but once he did, he integrated it, it never needed to be brought up again. Affection. I'm talking about affection. I already told you yesterday that sometimes... God, I just wish we could touch each other again. I don't even mean anything big, but I wish there was _something_ there. I wish it wasn't so goddamn hard for us to say or show how we feel - I only ever feel like I can if you're bleeding to death in my arms and it's the last two seconds I'll ever have with you. It shouldn't be like that."

"So you want to talk about feelings and hug."

"I want to tell you that I care about you when you're down, and I want you to feel like you can hold your hand on my shoulder when you pass by just because. But I don't feel like we can do that, because we've always, always felt it'd take us too close - the last time we hugged before going to bed was when we did a lot more than that, but the two aren't connected, they never were. I was more comfortable with you before I went to Stanford -"

"You don't think there's a correlation there, maybe, Sam?"

"What, between Stanford and us stopping? God, Dean, you can't be serious. Alright. Talk to me. Tell me about how much you still hate me for that. Tell me. Now's your chance."

Dean was quiet. Then, finally, he hissed and readjusted in his seat.

"I don't. I just..."  
He fell quiet again and nothing more came out of him.

"Dean -"

"I can't believe you're talking about this when you know how it ended."

Sam swallowed. Dean was _so scared_ \- he could hear it in his every word, in his stillness and in the way he breathed. Tension was the very definition of the way he came across to Sam, but somehow, the older's anxiety wasn't catching onto him. Instead, there was a numbness within the younger, especially at the prospect of finally reaching the one subject he feared the most. Just nothing: a full, complete void of feeling where he should have been hurting, fearing, panicking even. Numbness nearing disinterest. Nothing.  
"That had nothing to do with affection."

"No, you're right. It didn't."

"What I'm talking about is that we can have that without the rest. That's all I want. I want to be close with you, because I _need_ it - I'm human, and so are you. We both need it."

"You scared, Sammy?"

"Scared of what?"

"Of talking about what I'm talking about. You wanted to talk. I'm talking."

"You want to talk about that?" Sam asked, sighing.  
He leaned back in his chair and shivered.  
"You want to talk about me leaving?"

"Yeah. I want to talk about that. I want to hear you say, without lying, that what I did to you was alright. That I didn't hurt you. That - uh - it's not 'straightforward', and that I 'never did anything' to you. Because I've never been through anything more straightforward than that, Sam. And if you can still argue that what happened was somehow complicated and that maybe I somehow, magically, didn't hurt you -"

"Dean, stop."

"- then sure, we can talk about the rest, too. We can talk about anything once we're clear on one thing: you're lying, Sam. You're fucking lying. Because I know what I did to you, and I know I'll never forgive myself for it. Neither will you. Something like that - you don't take it back. Ever."

Sam's teeth ached, and it took that much for him to realise how hard he was gritting them together. He tried to relax, but even when the pain subsided, he still struggled to let down his shoulders. Finally he breathed in a trembling breath and straightened up from the crouched pose he'd slipped into, aimed a look somewhere towards the grey mess that may or may not have been Dean, and grimaced.  
"I don't blame you for what happened. I didn't then, and I don't now. I never have."

"You don't do something like that and walk out of it the same as you went in, Sam. What I did to you - I'll never be the same as I was before it happened. I can't do the things I used to do, I can't be with you like I used to do, because if I do, I not only completely disregard your safety, but it would be the most selfish, the most disgusting thing - I don't deserve it, and I'm not safe for you to be around like that. I can't risk it. I can't risk _you._ "

"The hell are you talking about, Dean?"

"What the hell do you _think_ I'm talking about?"

"I thought we were talking about what happened the night before I left, but nothing you say is making any sense. What did you do to me? Dean, I miscommunicated, I -"

"Miscommunicated. Right. And that had nothing to do with me taking you against your will."

"I didn't say _anything_."

"Which should have been a good fucking indicator of what you wanted!"

The breath that escaped Sam was pained and frustrated and scared. Finally, he was feeling something, even if it was just a blinding sensation of terror filling him up like a leaking pipe inside a small basement.  
"I _never_ said anything. And that was my mistake. You didn't _know_ , Dean. You didn't know. It wasn't your fault."

"Then whose was it?"

" _No one's._ It's not about blame, Dean. It was a mistake, for both of us. You didn't mean any harm, you didn't mean to hurt me."

"But I did, and I don't give a rat's ass about the rest. I should have known better. End of discussion, Sam."

"Dean -"

"I said, _end of discussion._ Eat your food."

There was no use trying to argue further - it was clear that the older had shut down again, and as horrible as the timing was, Sam didn't have a choice but to drop the matter and return to it when they had both thought it over. Nothing could have felt worse than knowing that _this_ was what Dean was thinking, probably had been for a long while - it was probably the one thing that had kept him on edge until this point, and Sam couldn't set him straight on it. But ultimately... he didn't know what to think of it. Years ago, he'd given up on figuring it out: thinking back to it hurt, so he'd stopped, thinking he'd never need to revisit that memory again. As if he'd ever outrun his past before, either.

 

 

He'd packed. The bags were underneath his bed and now the only thing that remained was to tell his family - tell Dean, and then, God, then John. In any other family, Stanford would have been reason for celebration. Sam couldn't stop shaking, hadn't since he'd gotten the confirmation that he was really in for this ride; half of it was excitement and the other was fear. This wasn't one of those families. This was his.

It was raining; the windows were streaked by the icy water streaming down from the early March skies. He'd been 18 for nearly a year already, but nothing had changed here - he was still the baby to his father, and to a lesser degree to his brother as well. If either of them had showed concern that he'd jump the fence, he hadn't noticed; he'd been looking for the signs but the worst was that even Dean seemed... confident, trusting, that he'd abandoned his desire for a different life and settled for this one instead. How could he tell him? He'd put it off for a whole week now, unable to get the words past his mouth. John scared him, but it was nothing in comparison to how much he was hurting for Dean. Dean would never swallow his reasoning, the hope that in doing this Sam would free him as well - put an end to whatever it was that was between them, chaining both of them down but most of all Dean, who couldn't so much as breathe without Sam by his side. The biggest irony of their lives was that where Dean needed Sam for air, Sam couldn't breathe while he was there, hadn't for a long while; one of them held too tight, and the other knew nothing of standing on his own. It had gone on for much too long and Dean knew it just as well as Sam did. They weren't brothers like this. Sam didn't know _what_ they were, but it felt like it had carved him hollow inside, taken from him everything that had made him a person on his own. There was nothing left, and if it was like that for him... Dean had barely ever lived for himself. He could have fooled someone else with the wild life he pretended to be living on the outside and John probably swallowed it whole, but Sam knew him like no one else did, and inside, he was just as lost as Sam had been for years.

He was on a seemingly endless beer run now, the weather holding him back on some badly paved strip of road. Sam had sat here for an eternity just waiting, feeling the burn of the bags below him and listening to the sound of rain outside, and he still hadn't figured out how to go about it.

_I'm leaving. Leaving you. Leaving Dad. Running away. Freeing you. Freeing us. I'm going to Stanford. You should be happy for me but I know you can't be. You wanted me to be happy but I can't be happy here. We need to stop sleeping together. It's killing you. It killed me a long while ago. I can't breathe, Dean. Dad will throw me out tomorrow. We might never see each other again._

_I love you._

Steps approached the doorway, and a shiver straightened Sam's spine to a ridiculous, military-grade posture. He turned mechanically to stare at the door until the key turned inside the lock and it opened quietly: Dean was illuminated by the yellow light above it, but inside the room everything was dark.

"Sammy, you sleeping already?"

"No," Sam replied with a weak, hollow voice, "No. I'm awake. Close the door."

"Sure will. Want a beer?"

Every last atom in Sam's body wanted a beer. He nodded, the lights flashing to life around him but the cheap bulbs barely had the strength to lighten up the room at all. Dean knocked back the door and laid out the bottles on the table as it hit its frames: he grabbed one and threw it across the room to Sam's direction, and the younger caught it from mid-air without issue. They opened the bottles and Dean crossed the room, falling down onto his bed while already drinking.  
"Movie night?"

_We need to talk._  
"No," was what came out of Sam's mouth instead.  
He swallowed.  
"Not in the mood."

"Ohh."

"Shut up, Dean."

"No, no, I get you."

_You don't get it.  
_ Did he? Maybe he did get it. Maybe he was distracting him on purpose, making it harder and harder until Sam wouldn't have the balls to go through with it.

_You're paranoid._

The older slipped back on his feet and went for the radio: he turned it on, adjusted the frequency and let out a sound of agreement when Deep Purple came on.  
"I'll take a shower," he announced then, and Sam found his shoulders falling down in a rush of relaxation and relief, "I mean, I kind of had one already, it's awful outside - but I feel filthy, so."

"Yeah. Okay."

"Not gonna join me? You know Dad's out for another night and even if he decided to come earlier, it won't be 'til tomorrow morning. He can't make the trip any faster."

Sam shook his head stiffly.  
"No. I'm fine. I showered earlier."

"Huh. Whatever."

And he left. Sam sighed into his bottle, the sound of his exhale turned into a flute-like whistle when it passed the mouth and the neck into the drink. It took half a minute before the water turned on in the other room and a part of Sam felt a tug towards it: a sort of an apology before he'd commit the crime, one more chance to press against the other's body and pretend everything was alright. But he couldn't, so he sat still feeling the discomfort of his body's response to the thought, lifted the bottle up to his lips again and wished it was something stronger than beer. Heavens knew he needed a bit of encouragement tonight. He felt so _weak_ and even though he'd planned this for - had it been weeks already? There were no words for it. The best he'd managed was a long, pleading silence and the glistening layer of wetness in his eyes, a combination that Dean had shrugged off with an annoyed, unnerved huff and a few mocking words. He'd been scared, but nowhere near as scared as Sam had been, and still was. It all depended on him, and it seemed that more and more of him just wanted to turn back, never leave, because making the call was so immensely difficult and, more than anything, it was painful.

It got worse from there. Upon entering the room again, Dean was wrapped in a towel and nothing more. He hadn't even taken his clothes with him from the bathroom, wherever it had been that he'd thrown them. Instead, he turned off the lights and stood there for a moment, staring into the wet darkness outside - Sam heard him dripping onto the wooden floor, a sound that did nothing to make him less aroused. It was a strange combination of two opposites: his mind couldn't have been less turned on, but his body... so damn conditioned. So young, so needy, out of his control like it didn't need to answer to him at all. He swallowed, mouthed 'turn the lights back on' but nothing came out, and he drank instead. One more night. He could give Dean that at least. It was fair, wasn't it? They'd part tomorrow and - shit, the things it meant.

Sam bowed his head to the older's touch upon his cheeks, then his neck, the pressure bringing him against Dean's body.

(It meant he wouldn't be there when they caught the thing that had killed mom. His whole life... just one mission, and he wouldn't be there to see it through. What did Mary think of him? Did the thoughts of the dead matter? Could she see him now? God... God, she couldn't, she shouldn't.)

Dean kneeled in front of him, pressed their foreheads together instead; his touches were so gentle even when he was demanding.  
"Come on, Sammy. Humour me."

(That was, if John would ever find the thing in the first place. It had been eighteen years and he still hadn't, and Sam didn't know if he was any closer today than he'd been when he'd started. He'd kept telling them he was on the track, but he'd been telling them that since day one.)

Sam let the older push him down on the bed. He closed his eyes to the nips at his neck, the slow run of a tongue along his skin all the way down to the collarbones, revealed by a pair of fingers greedily tugging at his shirt to bring it down. The towel didn't stretch for this and the knot fell apart, leaving Dean sitting naked over his brother's hips, softly rocking against the heated flesh underneath, humming softly every now and then as he pulled off Sam's shirt and brought them together.

(It meant he wouldn't be there, victory or defeat. Wouldn't be there when they needed them the most - but he didn't believe in that mission, not like John and Dean did. He'd never done - never really understood what it meant. A revenge mission for... for his mother, his mother that he'd never gotten the chance to know. Of course it hurt. Of course he loved her. But he'd never known her. It was different. It wasn't that he didn't want the thing dead just as bad as the rest of them, it just meant that for his whole life, he'd been lost on a path that had been laid clear out for him. Perhaps he saw clearer than the two who'd suffered the loss in a whole different way than he'd suffered never knowing a different life. Perhaps it was only him who could look past it and see just how insane it was, and what else the world could have offered them.)

Sam closed his eyes - in the dark it hardly mattered if it was because he was enjoying himself or because he wanted out of the situation. Dean wouldn't know the difference, he wouldn't tell. Just one night; he owed it. And then never again, ever. It would be better that way, but Dean didn't know it yet.

(Worst case scenario, he wouldn't be there to bury John. No - _worst_ case scenario, he'd lose them both. God, worst case scenario, they'd be found by strangers, buried as John Does. Maybe he'd hear of it later. He wouldn't be able to take it; a world without Dean? But if he stayed... it would be so much worse. Maybe him leaving would give Dean the chance to do it, too. Maybe he'd want it. Dean was bright, probably smarter than Sam had ever been, and he was brave. He was just stuck... and maybe, just maybe, this would make him see better. Sam didn't know. Staying wouldn't. He'd tried that for years and it had brought them... right here. Right now. Right -)

Sam slipped off his jeans himself, fingers cold and unwilling to bend but still at least in his control. He laid his hands down on the bed and lifted his chin to make sure the tears ran away from his cheeks; if they were on his forehead, they would pass for sweat. Dean shouldn't know. He wasn't ready to tell.

Just one more night. He prayed he could have wanted it like it was just that, but he didn't, and the further it got the more he wanted it to just stop, for something to happen that would get Dean's attention and draw it away from him. Even John would do - he was leaving anyway, being thrown out for this didn't matter to him. Maybe it would have been for the best to be caught, better late than never. But John wouldn't come, he was half across the state, maybe further; they didn't know. But close enough to catch them here... never.

Sam let out a small whimper when he felt the cold of Dean's fingertips by his flesh, slippery with lube, sparing little hesitation before entering. Instinctively he tried to press his legs closer together but he caught himself from it and forced them to part instead, swallowing thickly to down acid in his throat. It was just Dean, this was nothing out of the ordinary, nothing he hadn't said yes to a million times before. Dean would never hurt him - one word and it would be over. He just didn't want to speak it, didn't want to let the man down, not tonight; worse yet, he didn't want to tell him why, why not tonight when he'd taken it so willingly a hundred times before. Maybe that was exactly the reason, Sam couldn't tell. The only thing he could tell was that his body, even still throbbing with arousal, didn't want this now any more than he did. His muscles were tense, his skin cold with sweat, his pose forced and uncomfortable. Dean had to notice it by now, and although Sam could hardly spare enough attention for him for the time it took to read him, he could have sworn he felt hesitation in his movements. Instead of a pause, he had the other's lips on his neck again, trying to coax him to relax, perhaps mistaking his tension for pain. He wasn't in pain.

Dean would never hurt him.

With some determination he forced himself to relax; it made him feel like he was playing dead, but it didn't matter, it was to ease Dean's mind and not to make him feel any better. He closed his eyes again, unsure when he'd opened them to stare blankly at the ceiling, but when he did he imagined a different kind of a day, one without rain and with John right there with them, a greasy burger in one hand and a smile on his face, rough voice traded for a softer one.  
When had they last been a family? The years had taken from John even the intent to be a father, it seemed; he still loved them, no doubt about it, but he gave them little reason to think so. He was there to command them, to take them out on missions, and his gentleness came in jokes none different than what he spared for his other hunter friends: he had a commander's mindset, and they were his soldiers. Sam missed his father, but that wasn't the biggest loss he'd suffered. This was - Dean was. He didn't know what to make of them when Dean's fingers slid out of his body, his other hand reaching to stroke Sam's cheeks briefly before he positioned himself and joined them the same way he'd done so many times before. His hips pressed closer softly, never forgetting that the flesh he was entering was delicate, easy to break. His fingers, palms now pressed against the mattress below them, pushed under Sam's arms to feel the warmth of his body, and Sam raised his legs and pressed them over the sides of his brother's hips as if to hold him even though his hands now gripped the sheets, knuckles and fingertips white with force. His jaw was clenched, locked, but Dean didn't know that; what he did know was that Sam's head was turned away from him, but it wasn't unusual. They often both did that, gave way for some better fantasy, a distraction from the reality of what was happening between them even though it wasn't a lack of affection and need for closeness from the very same person they were escaping from with their thoughts. It just fit the picture: sometimes facing the truth for what it was felt too awkward, too painful, too shameful. It meant nothing most of the nights, but now Sam wished Dean could have read his thoughts and known exactly how much he didn't want to be there.

Only that much to go.

The warmth of Dean's body felt comforting, enough so to mask away most of the panic that was slowly rising within Sam's chest. He battled that feeling through the thrusts, mind set on returning the movements but he still felt that he was doing so too stiffly, and more often than not he found his muscles clenching to the point of cramping as his subconscious tried to battle its way through to victory. Mind empty: he didn't want to think of anything now, couldn't even escape to that imaginary diner he'd conjured earlier, it was too painful to face up with the old man when they were... and what was it, exactly? A betrayal? Sam lifted his cold hands over Dean's back and held him, eyes open again to see the ceiling and the wetness of Dean's hair every time it entered his field of vision. The next breath he took came in as a choked sob, a gasp; Dean hesitated to the sound of it, tried to find Sam's eyes but he closed them again, escaping the one chance to let the other know how he felt. He could almost feel his back bumping into the bags underneath the bed every time he felt his body lean back into the mattress by the force of another's movements, and the more they rubbed against him, the more the thought of them burned, the more the whole situation burned. His heart raced, his head felt light and the world around him pulsed and rocked with the arrhythmic beats within his chest, and suddenly he didn't know how to breathe anymore: each inhale felt too short, too long, each exhale came delayed, and sometimes there were two inhales for one exhale or the other way around. His body was cold, his fingers and toes tingled with numbness and his nails dug into Dean's body; he couldn't really tell if Dean was still moving or not, but he needed certainty that he _wasn't_.

"Dean," he let out, barely recognising his own voice, "Please. Dean, please, stop. Stop."

The only thing Sam could properly recognise was the scared little breath that escaped Dean as they parted. He felt bruised, beaten, violated, disgusting, filthy, but it was _over_ \- he could feel Dean's hand grip his and the hasty, clumsy movements of his other hand as it reached, tugged, tore the blanket from underneath them free enough to cover Sam's body with it. There was no fucking way Sam would have let himself cry, but he was close; his heart was still beating so fast it hurt and the lightheadedness wasn't fading either, but at least his breathing was somewhat under control, one inhale and one exhale, he just didn't know how long or fast they were supposed to come.

There weren't words. Sam knew Dean was terrified, but he couldn't offer him a word; the only thing that seemed to make sense was to repeat that he was sorry, he was sorry, he was _sorry_ even though Sam wasn't sure what he was sorry for, and Dean didn't seem to know how to take it either.

"It's okay, Sammy. Shh. It's okay. You're okay. Sammy, I'm sorry, too. I don't - I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry, Dean."

"It's okay, Sam."


	13. Saints and Sinners

It seemed like that one conversation had sucked out all other conversations from them for the rest of the day, as neither spoke to the other again unless it was absolutely necessary to do so. Sam spent the evening trying to read, and Dean spent the same time trying to both be present in the same room as Sam but as if he wasn't there at once. Sam didn't know what he was doing: he didn't seem or sound like he was doing anything at all. That was the worst option, that perhaps he really _wasn't_ doing anything - it wasn't completely unlike Dean, but usually when he froze like that he at least had a bottle with him. Now he just was as if he wasn't, completely still and silent in one chair for hours and hours while Sam tried to make sense of pages he couldn't see in front of him.

Finally, after so much time that Sam had no means of telling just how long it had been (and he'd made zero progress on his work, as his mind had been absent the whole time), the older finally shifted and stood up.  
"It's getting late, Sam."

"How late?"

"Like eleven in the evening late. I'm going to take a shower and head to bed. I suggest you do the same, because if you get lost in here while I'm napping, nobody will help you."

"Dean..."

"Yeah?"

Sam shook his head. He didn't know what to say: it sounded like Dean was heading back into his own room, and based on the way they'd not communicated after dropping the subject where they had, he wasn't surprised nor did he have a good reason to convince the older otherwise. He closed the book again, wondering how many if any pages he'd flitted through since hours ago, and stood up: his legs felt heavy and stiff underneath him, but he'd make it back to his bedroom.  
"Good night," he finally said.

"Yeah. That."

They parted in the corridor; Sam couldn't say for sure where Dean was headed, but it wasn't straight for the bathroom, if that was his destination at all. The thought made him feel even worse than he'd done before, and after clumsily changing back into his nightwear he sat on his bed for a long time, unwilling to go to sleep and dread lurking somewhere quite close to surface whenever he so much as thought about the night to come. If he'd ever been vulnerable to nightmares, it would be tonight.

Just when he was going to give up and turn off the lights, the door opened behind him: he jerked up to the sound, ears perking to catch any sound, and half-turned as if to see Dean step inside. It didn't take sight or sound to determine that it was Dean - Sam could feel it from his presence, he simply _knew_.

"Why are you still up? Planning to sleep on your feet or what?" the older asked with a smile tinting his voice.

"I thought..."

"What?"

"That you'd... I thought you'd sleep in your own room."

"Yeah, well. It did cross my mind, but nah."

"'Nah'?"

"Nah."

A relieved smile spread over Sam's lips. He relaxed back onto the bed and stretched his neck, chin against his chest for a moment until Dean sat behind him and, without hesitation, settled on his back. Sam reached to turn off the light, but when his fingers found the switch, he didn't press it quite yet.  
"Dean... I just want to ask you - you remember what we did after - after that had happened?"

"We watched two movies. One to stop you from shaking, the other so that we didn't have to talk."

"When I said I don't blame you for what happened, I mean it. I don't. I understand why you do, but it wasn't your fault."

"I heard you the first time, Sam, but I know what I did."

Sam turned the switch, and the mist around him changed colour again. It was relieving to be able to see darkness again, even though for the first few days it had been the only thing he could.  
"I'm sorry I didn't say anything. I'm sorry I put us through that. At the time, I thought - I thought it was the best way to handle it. I felt so fucking guilty for what I was about to do, so I..."

"As if I ever wanted sex from you, Sam. As if you owed me that. I should have known from the get-go what it was about, I just... I didn't know what to make of it. You were sending the worst mixed signals in the history of - I just didn't know so I thought... maybe I could trust you on it. That you'd tell me if you didn't want it. But turns out, you didn't, and I..."

"I'm sorry."

"I know. Me, too. And it's not your fault, it's _not_ , Sam, I just... I freaked out and I just felt so bad - I still do, I... never really let it go, I don't think I can. I don't want to talk about it because I feel so - I don't feel like I deserve to be around you, or anyone, or that I deserve to be touched or loved after what I did to you. It's just not - easy to go on after something like that. It's so selfish to say that, isn't it, when I... but it hurts to just think of it. All this time I've kind of hoped that you, I don't know, locked it away and didn't think of it anymore, didn't remember it, but then you bring it up and..."

Dean's voice drifted away and Sam heard him let out a breath that was shaky with the tears he was trying to hold back. He dropped on his back on the bed and sighed, reached his hand across the space between them but didn't find Dean's hand; he found the other from over his stomach and held it instead.

"I don't, Dean," he said then, sighing.  
"I don't think about it. I try not to. I don't have such a clear picture of what happened or what happened after, but I remember the next day even less, Dad's freakout and - and how you took it, when I... What I want you to know is that you didn't break me. It was a mistake, and it hurt, but I think ultimately... it probably hurt you worse. You stopped when I told you to, that's all that matters, Dean. You didn't hesitate a second and that I _do_ remember. You did everything you could to make sure nothing bad ever happened to me, and you didn't betray me. I trusted you before that and I trusted you after, probably even more than before. More than anything... that one mistake we made doesn't define you. What happened to us when we were kids - it doesn't define us. It doesn't have to mean that we can never be close again in ways that _won't_ hurt us, or that you or I don't deserve what we have and what we could have today. I want to move on. I don't want that thing to hang over us like some - freaking shadow all the time. I want it gone, I want it to stick to the past where it happened, and I want to be able to touch you and - God, Dean, I love you. I want to show it and I want to be able to tell you, and if this is the thing that keeps us from it, then it needs to _go_."

There was a long silence, defined by nothing but their breaths, Sam's held-back, nervous little gasps in particular. Dean on the other hand seemed to be making his as quiet as he possibly could, as if to make himself invisible to Sam, but at least he was there and he was listening, and it was all that mattered to the younger.

"You're my brother, Dean," Sam finally uttered when nothing else was coming out of either of them, "I don't want to lose that to what happened to us twenty years ago."

Dean nodded - Sam could barely tell from the sound and the way his weight shifted, but he hoped he was right.  
"I know. I'll - I'll think about it. I promise."

"Thank you."

The older huffed softly. Finally his fingers gripped Sam's in turn and he held the man's hand firmly for a moment before pulling away from the touch.  
"Yeah. Good night, Sam. Can I ask for one thing in return?"

"Anything."

"Stop downplaying how you feel. In the long run, it won't make you any happier than it makes me."

Sam grimaced.  
"I'll think about that."

"Thinking about it ain't good enough. I know it's not as simple as you make it out to be, like you weren't - as if it - as if it's alright. Maybe you're not a _victim_ , but something like that - it leaves a scar. I remember it too, Sam."

For a moment, Sam remained quiet; the conversation had nearly ended on a note that he felt at least appeared hopeful, but now he was dragged back to the beginning of it.  
"Dean, look. I'll try to make this make sense, but if it doesn't, just try to take it as it is. Okay?"

"Right."

Dean moved, shifted, and his weight bent the mattress down between them. His breath wavered and Sam felt his do the same, and he wished they were still holding hands, so he grasped the sheet beneath them instead.  
"I've coped," he started breathlessly, "In my own way, I've dealt with it. I did research, tried to understand; I've been awake before thinking it through, just - trying not to, but still ending up back in that place a countless times. Trying to figure out what happened to us, what happened to me, what happened to you, and what went wrong that night, and it is what it is. I'm not saying it's my fault. I'm saying it's not yours, either. I couldn't stop you because it wasn't about that one thing that happened, that was happening; it was our whole relationship, the kind of a messed up caring thing we had going on, trying to make up for what we lacked in comfort and safety and connection, everything. It was - the way we coped with the life. There's a dynamic between us - I'm your brother, your little brother, and you're my big brother. Maybe there was a part of me that believed that I owed it to you since I - I was essentially betraying you, or that - that I wanted it, too, in some twisted way. And you just thought I was stressed, you tried to do your best to make me feel _better,_ not _worse._ You wouldn't have done anything if I could have communicated, but I felt like I couldn't do that and I ended up making you feel like you had to work even harder to make me feel more at ease - it's just a mess, Dean. It's not that I was scared of you, it's just that I didn't know if I wanted to tell you no or what the hell I wanted, and you had no idea what was going on in my head because I was doing my damn best to not let it show. Alright? Neither of us meant for it to go like that. But if you think - if you think it was rape, it wasn't. It was awful and yes, it hurt me, and it messed me up. But it messed you up, too, because you never wanted that. I'm alright. Today, I'm alright. I don't think it was your fault and I don't blame myself for it, I just see it as something that finally made me realise how fucked up it was what we were doing. It couldn't go right. Even - even under different circumstances, one of us was going to get hurt, and it could have been a lot worse than that. That's what I think. The thing is, if there's something that I still need... it's just to talk it through, Dean. Really face up to it and - do what we're doing now. But I can't do that if you won't let me say what I feel, too. I can't do it if you hang onto the blame."

"Sam, I..."  
  
Sam nodded. Then, a yawn broke through. He covered it up but not before Dean had chuckled: his chuckle sounded terrified, scared and fragile, but Sam was glad to hear it.  
  
"I should let you sleep, right."

"Yeah. I'd appreciate that."

"Then good night it is."

"Good night, Dean."

 

 

Dean couldn't sleep. It didn't come as a surprise, not after the conversation they'd had - not after the _day_ they'd had - but he hated it all the same. Sam seemed to fare better; it had taken him some two odd hours, but there he was now, curled up on his side with his back almost touching Dean, breathing easy and deep and restful like nothing in the world was burdening him. It was a good sound, all those countless small huffs and puffs that he was letting out, and at least knowing that he felt at ease enough to reach that state and leave himself defenseless here was a relief to Dean. Nothing else was, not really, but at three in the morning the man still climbed up from the bed, very quietly but still rousing Sam from his sleep, to seek out something to ease his mind. Something specific, hidden in a kitchen cupboard.

"Dean...?"

"Just keep sleeping, Sammy, I won't be long. Promise."

"Hmm..."

The corridor was long and wide tonight, as if it had grown in both length and width since the last time Dean had walked through it. His steps were heavy and the choking feeling inside his throat and around his chest wouldn't ease even though he tried his best to not think of what had been said, done, brought up earlier that day. It didn't matter: the wounds were open and he was _scared,_ scared out of his mind and there was nothing that could ease it. More than anything he wanted, needed, his brother, but at the same time being around Sam made the ache inside him all the worse, the guilt and the shame for what had happened and what they'd talked about, as if he'd coped solely on the hope that somehow Sam didn't remember it all. If it had haunted him before, it was nothing in comparison to how he felt now.

He dug up the whiskey and, after considering it briefly, poured some in a glass instead of bringing the bottle up to his lips straight away: he needed his head with him tonight, and even more he couldn't afford to be drunk tomorrow. He couldn't show that weakness to Sam no matter how much he craved the oblivion. He had to stand up straight and pretend he was fine - otherwise he just so might turn out somehow else. What else kept him walking, standing, talking through the day than the pretense of him being somehow functional enough to do so?

A major part of him craved for a conversation outside of what he could have with Sam; he wanted to call Cas, but his phone was in the bedroom, too far from his reach. He shivered to the feeling of loneliness that washed over him, and he realised that Sam had been right about at least one thing - they didn't have enough in terms of human interaction. How long had it been two on two and no one else there to share the weight of the world with them? He didn't need much, he'd never needed - he'd been raised to do with minimum human contact with people outside the family, but at least back then "family" had had more people in it than just him and Sam. Even John alone had been something, and then there had been Bobby, Ellen; he needed someone who could grab his shoulder and look him in the eye, tell him to suck it up and take it like a man. He missed Charlie, her bright smile, compassion and the cheerful way she faced the world - he missed Kevin, missed Lisa, missed everyone who'd ever given him the chance to experience a meaningful connection of any kind. Most of all, however, he still just missed his brother, as if they hadn't parted seven minutes ago, because it was Sam who was the source of the ache within him, the one relationship that he was half-consciously fearing he was losing. Of course he wasn't; Sam didn't seem to be going anywhere, not this time. If he could trust Sam's reasoning, the very reason they'd gone through this hell of a day was solely to 'fix' their relationship, whatever the hell that meant. But moving forwards, leaving those things behind and, God, trying to change the way they'd learned to be with one another was scary beyond all measure, and it was for that reason that Dean wanted to be with someone else, wanted someone to give him a break and some distance to the matter that was seemingly now strangling him in the kitchen. He poured another glass and drank it straight, just as unceremoniously as he'd downed the first one.

"Cas, man, you've got your ears on?"

The words were hoarse through the burn of alcohol and the lack of sleep, and Dean cleared his throat, his weight shifting from leg to the other.

"If you can - if there's any chance you could - then please hurry up a little. I need someone in here with us, Cas, someone... who changes the dynamic, you know? We've been talking, me and Sam, and it's gotten - it's heavy stuff, man, things I didn't want to talk about, things Sam didn't - and I just - I need someone to get us out of there, out of that place. I need fresh air, Cas. It's nothing... bad, everything's alright, but I don't know how long I can hold up if it's just me and him and these things; it hurts pretty bad. You know it does when I admit to it. It's easier when you're not here, when I don't have to face up with what I'm saying, but the truth is, I'm scared and I'm tired and I really, really need a friend right now. I'd call you but you probably wouldn't pick up and my phone's in the bedroom and Sam's sleeping and I don't... I don't want to _talk_. I just want to be heard, if that makes - if it makes any sense at all."

He swallowed, eyes turning towards the ceiling before he even realised they were watering. With shaking, cold hands he wiped off the tears before they fell over his face and he shuddered, jaw clenching and shoulders tense.

"You're all we've got, Cas. And we miss you like hell, we both do. I try not to press you too much - I know you're busy, I know for you it's different, but we're not angels; at this rate the next time you'll see us will be at our funeral. So if you can... just for a moment put aside the angel stuff and sit down with a couple of old friends, that'd be... that'd be great. So... so yeah. That's all, I guess. Carry on with whatever it is that you're doing, I'm done whining. Amen."

 

 

Morning came late that day, only dawning to Dean when Sam's fingers wound around his hand and held tightly, accompanied by words that didn't make any sense through the filter of sleep.  
"Mmhm?"

The younger chuckled, shaking his head against the bright light of the ceiling lamp shining from behind his head somewhere when Dean opened his eyes.

"Nothing. I made coffee."

"You - _you?_ " Dean repeated, squinting.  
He was already half sitting; the mismatching information was intriguing enough to power him even though the lack of proper, good-quality sleep was pulling him back down to the soft embrace of the mattress below.

Sam shrugged.  
"Took me around twenty minutes," he confessed, "but I did it. It's a lot better today, Dean. I can almost see. It's like - like I need the thickest glasses available, but I can almost see. I know where your eyes are, for one."  
For emphasis, he looked directly into Dean's eyes and nodded.

Dean raised his brows, then wondered if Sam's vision was good enough to pick up on it. Immediately after another thought hit him, returning the cold pool of ice and water into the pit of his stomach. He shivered, bit his teeth together and leaned forwards, bringing one arm around Sam's body in a quick hug. When he pulled back, the other was looking down with a smile on his face and a light blush over his cheeks - probably out of surprise and the same kind of embarrasment that lingered within Dean rather than anything else, but he seemed approving nonetheless, and that message alone was enough to settle some of the fear in Dean's gut.

"Thanks, Sam."

"Don't thank me yet, it might be a mess in the kitchen. I tried to clean up but it's - well, it's... not easy when you don't know what you're doing, really."

Dean shook his head.  
"Doesn't matter. I'm glad you're feeling better. Tomorrow will be even better than today, I promise you. Now... let me pull on some pants and test drive the coffee you made. I'm sure it's good."

Sam nodded slowly, shifting away from Dean and then finally picking himself up as Dean was already moving across the room to grab his loose jeans from the pile on the chair. They walked side by side to the kitchen, never uttering a word more; there didn't seem to be need for it, not urgently, and after pouring them both cups Dean handed one directly to Sam and motioned him to follow. He did, proving that he was indeed in a much better condition today: his sight didn't seem to bother his functionality too much, partially likely due to the practice he'd had over the course of days but also certainly because what he'd said had been true. They seated themselves like any other day at the table, and Dean pulled out his phone from the pocket of his jeans to find one voice message left for him.

"Dean," Castiel's voice entered with slight delay after the message had already started recording, "If you get this, I... heard you. I will be there tomorrow evening. I promise. I'm sorry for taking so long. I should visit you more often. I wish I could, I... don't want my next visit to be at your funeral. You're right. I'm trying, but..."

"C'mon, Cas," Dean huffed, fingers reaching to rub at his scalp while the voice in the message hesitated, "I shouldn't have said anything."

Sam raised his head and lifted his brows in question.  
"What did you say?"

Dean raised a finger between them to hear if there would be another line in the message. There was, but it was uninformative; "See you soon," and then a click.

"It's funny," he said then, placing his phone on the table, "when you have a direct line to God's messenger. You know, let's say I pray to Cas - he can just get back to me on phone."

"Your own personal Jesus," Sam huffed, grinning.  
He raised his cup to his lips and drank, his expression concentrated and suspicious. Then it smoothened out and he shrugged.  
"The coffee... tastes like coffee. I guess we can call that a success."

"Sure."  
Dean tested his cup - Sam was right about it.  
"Congratulations, you've passed."

"What'd he call for, anyway?"

"Said he'll be here tonight. Guess we could use an intervention."

The younger grimaced, nodding.  
"We sure as hell could," he admitted.


	14. Epilogue

Four fifteen in the morning. Sam's eyes followed the numbers on the computer's screen idly as he waited for the email to appear; his fingertip ran smoothly over the course of text laid out on the pages of the first Harry Potter, a little less than half of the book behind him already, and his concentration was upon what he was reading rather than what he was seeing. It was slow work, but he was doing damn good and a little spark of pride dwelled within him, resistant to burning out, and the more he read the more brightly it was glowing. Every now and then he glanced back at the book, but there was very little that he needed to do with his eyes to make sense of the text: he didn't have to check out where the next line started, didn't need to figure out where was the top of the next page. More than anything, he only looked at what he was doing out of a habit, and perhaps a little to remind himself that he _could_ see the book even if he didn't have to - the week he'd spent blind had left a recurring insecurity within him, a dread that maybe one day he'd wake up the way he'd been then, suddenly blind again. It had taught him to appreciate seeing in a whole another way than he'd ever known before, and he cherished that; there was a certain peaceful joy to appreciating things that he'd often taken for granted, and having the sense of sight was now on that list. Sometimes, everything just looked _so_ beautiful in subtle ways: a braille book was visually a strange thing, thick pages with bumps upon them, larger in size than most books that Sam would have read, but for him now, even that was worth viewing.

Ironically, being able to read with his eyes had proven to be a big help for him in learning to read with his fingertips: that was the way he'd always learned, by viewing, and once he'd had it back, adjusting to other means of written language had become much less complicated to understand. He'd kept at it, perhaps out of the same fear that still made him question whether this blessing was something that would last or something that would be taken from him for good one day, or perhaps simply out of curiosity and determination, and this was the reward he had for it; he could idly stare at whatever sight he wished or even close his eyes if he wanted to, and yet he didn't have to stop reading. It was relaxing in a way that was hard to pin down and he loved it, and the sense of accomplishment still lingered within every time he got back to it and found himself handling the task with a little more grace and ease.

Behind him, he could hear Castiel and Dean talk; it was nothing of importance and he barely paid it any attention, simply accepting it as his background noise that helped him concentrate, but every now and then one of them addressed him directly, dragging him out of the comfort of his bubble. This time, it wasn't his name that did it; it was Dean, bowing down to his level with his arm sliding over Sam's shoulders, fingers petting the side of his arm gently as he refreshed the mail box on the laptop's screen. Nothing.

"If we get nothing by five," he grunted out with a frown on his face, "let's take the ride over to see if everything's alright."

Sam nodded. He'd thought the same thing. His own hand moved over Dean's to hold it briefly before he reached for his cup of coffee, now a little cold already, and brought it to his lips.

"You've gotten far with the book."

"Mm."

"I didn't think you'd actually keep doing that once you - you know, didn't need to."

Sam shook his head.  
"It's challenging. Keeps me occupied, anyway."

"Well, I'm glad it was good for something," Dean huffed, pulling up again and stretching; he yawned, and Sam couldn't blame him, "Sign language next? What kind of a monster can we get to turn you deaf?"

"Shut up, Dean."

"Or is it my turn next?"

"If you ever end up deaf," Sam chuckled, turning around in his chair and exchanging weary but amused looks with Castiel, "I know the basics for ASL."

"Sounds dull. Better keep my ears intact or I'm in for a course, aren't I."

"Pretty much."

"Great. Anyway, I'm gonna go out and grab some pizza while we wait. I'll bring more coffee while I'm at it. So... stay out of trouble while I'm out, alright?"

Sam nodded, and as Dean moved past him his hand briefly crossed Sam's hair, sending it all over his face.  
"I'll call you if we get the mail," Sam uttered through a grimace and a curtain of hair tickling at his skin.

"You do that, baby brother."

 


End file.
